Now, the implementation of the reform must reckon with an economic and financial crisis that has already caused a sizable increase in the deficit, so the resources for the incentives and rewards envisaged by the reform will have to be wrung from steps to rationalize the expenditure of the administrations. Some results have already been achieved here and there at the subnational level, and the enabling law on fiscal federalism, if properly and rigorously implemented, will force local and regional governments to continue on that path with even greater determination. On the other hand, so far the signs from central government have been disappointing; rationalizing and improving the quality of the expenditure of central government bodies does not appear to stand high on the agenda of the Minister for the Public Administration and Innovation. The period (in the late 1990s) when the office in which he now serves was the Treasury’s staunchest and most effective ally in the hard work of rehabilitating the public finances seems to belong to a distant era.