“…In Italy, it is difficult to empirically demonstrate this trend by both research data and literature, as no political actor has openly embraced or declared a policy strategy in this direction and most of their statements still remain in line with the decentralization project (Gardini, 2011: 457; Bolgherini, 2014). In Spain, by contrast, the (re)centralization processes have long been under way since the early 2000s (Losada and Maiz, 2005), at least partly due to the fact that ‘within the structure defined by the Spanish Constitution of 1978, two opposing processes have always co-existed (…). Specifically, the process of federalization (…) has always been accompanied by a hidden process of reactive de-federalization that has continually eroded self-government’ (Maiz et al ., 2010: 65).…”