As regards the cohesion funds for the period 2014-2020, only 33.4% of the available funds have been spent
The Pnrr goes, the excellent work of an excellent Raffaele Fitto is producing those results, which honestly few would have predicted only a year ago. The fifth installment of the plan received the green light from the Commission for payment a few days ago and the government is already working on requesting the sixth installment. No country has achieved the objectives of our country, and this should be news.
But the aspect that should perhaps make everyone more optimistic is the one concerning the implementation phase of the plan itself, which also in this case seems to have taken the right direction. According to a report by Sun 24 Hours of a few weeks ago, the plan, in fact, would have given a decisive acceleration also on this very delicate aspect. The data of the newspaper of Confindustria they speak of 57.2% of the works already assigned, 44.7% of the projects are in execution, while 16.3% are at the signing stage.
The Union of Provinces, a few weeks ago, certified how the approximately 3.1 billion that were assigned to the Italian provinces, have translated into 1,700 projectsof which 1,496 concern school facilities. In short, the many, perhaps too many prophets of doom, have been categorically denied, the plan thanks also to the precise will to remodel it in some of its points, and the fact was anything but obvious. The limits of this country in the ability to spend the generous community funds that come from the European Union are well known.
Suffice it to say that, as regards the cohesion funds of the period 2014.2020 only 33.4% of the available funds, which amounted to almost 69 billion euros, were spent. While for those for the period 2021-2027 the result remained at an embarrassing 0.9% out of 74 billion in total funds available. Figures that show how the Italian situation from this point of view has long been dramatic and how instead the state of progress of a massive plan such as that of resilience and resistance truly represents a decisive change of pace compared to the standards of the past.
But the road ahead is still long and full of obstacles, as Minister Fitto rightly pointed out, guest of honor at the ANCI meeting in Rome on July 4, with the very eloquent title “Mission Italy. The PNRR for municipalities and cities”. Here the minister underlined the great progress made, but also reiterated that the difficult part begins now. “There is a fruitful collaboration with the Municipalities, the critical issues are those inherent in a Country System that in 2014-2020out of a total of 126 billion available, after 9 years, it had only spent 34% and therefore it is a problem of the Country System that needs a profound intervention of change”, he added.
“We have quite a bizarre debate in Italy: we are all focused on potential problems and risks and we are taking for granted the results we have achieved. It is not necessarily a question of seeing the glass half full or half empty, but it is a question of acknowledging the fact that the much contested revision of the PNRR has led to a very important solution from an organizational point of view on the number and quality of the objectives”, concluded Fitto.
In the same meeting, the minister reiterated the importance of centralising the control room of the plan, repeating the scheme proposed by the same European Commissionwith which the government and the minister in particular have always maintained a constant and fruitful dialogue in these months. But, as mentioned, a further effort is now needed to ensure that there is no risk of wasting fundamental resources, which we must not forget are largely in debt.
And to do this the minister at the meeting of theAnciannounced the creation of thematic control rooms to focus efforts on individual projects and to better review the progress of the works. The success of the plan is not only important for the amount of investments that it can set in motion, but also and above all for the reforms that it contains. Those reforms that our country has been waiting for decades and that could be the driving force for the future.
But the success of the resilience and resistance plan is also important because, as the ministerin the future the commission will put in place plans similar to this one, and this lays the foundations for addressing them with the right approach and the right mentality. Because it is precisely on a change of mentality that the PNRR must act, to profoundly change the poor attitude of local authorities and municipalities to complete projects financed by the European Union.
So here it is that the Pnrr It will certainly be a determining factor as a driver of the country’s growth in the short and medium term, but its full implementation will be even more decisive in the long term, because it will demonstrate that the country has reached the maturity necessary to build that process of lasting growth, which our country has been lacking for decades.
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