The aim of this article is to offer an account of the centralization and compression of subnational spaces of autonomy triggered by the economic crisis. Scholars have already produced sound and detailed research on the incidence of the crisis on some specific aspects in the Italian legal context, and especially on the relationships between the coordination of budgetary and financial policies and the welfare state model we shall limit ourselves to some reflections on the situation of emergency created by the crisis by showing the incremental and sometimes non-linear nature of the latest developments in the Italian regional law.