Legge 244/2012, modello a 150.000 militari e livello di ambizione nazionale in ambito Difesa. Compatibilità o revisione

Abstract

After twenty years from the beginning of its process of change in a professional way, the organizational model of the Armed Forces still fails to find a real efficiency. The system introduced by the Law no. 244/2012 and its implementing measures tried to provide a solution to this issue, by establishing optimal quantitative limits and budget distribution objectives that could enable a better operating capacity and an innovative development of the sector. Although the aforementioned law was motivated by the need to adapt spending review policies to the effective functions of the military administration, it revealed some relevant critical points, which helped to maintain, if not even to aggravate, same problems and imbalances generated by the first phase of the professionalization of the Armed Forces. The most critical point of Law no. 244/2012 concerns the personnel, its composition and its cost, which reflected, when financial balances are unchanged, on the functionality of the Armed Forces, including our commitments within the Atlantic Alliance. The cost of personnel, in fact, had a significant impact on the available resources, for instance on that part referred to the operating expenses. The principal weakness concerns, specifically, the distribution of staff roles and the raising of its average age, as a result of the recruitment limitation policies. The loss of military operating capacity worries because of the challenges which the Italian Armed Forces must face today, both internationally, in view of the current geopolitical conflict in Europe, and internally, with regard to the full involvement in civil protection activities and in contributing to public security functions. In addition, our Armed Forces are committed to facing the new threats deriving from cyber warfare. In this perspective, the Italian Parliament has recently approved the Law no. 119/2022. After having postponed for 10 years the deadline for the achievement of the quantitative objectives set out in Law no. 244/2012, the reform delegates to the Government for carrying out an overall revision of the previous organizational model. Moreover, it changes the discipline of the military fixed stop, provides for the establishment of a reserve Armed Force, requires the creation of professional personnel in strategic sectors, such as that of cybersecurity, and envisages the reform of military health services.