Abstract
The decisions on fiscal federalism within asymmetric federal systems are a forerunner of the phenomenon known as ‘executive federalism’. Against this background, the study investigates decision-making processes in the asymmetrical decentralised systems of Italy and Spain, focusing on the sources of law and the decisionmaking procedures that characterize the financial constitutions of the foral regime Autonomous Communities and of the special Regions. The procedures thereof find their raison d'être in the bilateral nature of intergovernmental financial relations and are under the domain of the executives of the different governments, challenging the essence of the principle of democracy. Accordingly, the decision to isolate this segment of federalism studies serves a twofold purpose: first, investigating the elective assemblies’ role in law-making when technical areas like public finance are at stake, second, analyzing the impact on the institutional level of an essential area of subnational autonomy, having a transversal and instrumental nature