Genoa – When the extraordinary plan for European aid to the states affected by Covid-19, and above all to Italy which was its privileged recipient, was presented to the Italians in spring 2020, it was accompanied by triumphal tones: finally a country always in pursuit of resources would have had a “breath in the arm”, as well 200 billion euros partly in the form of subsidized loans and partly non-repayable.
Today, that plan renamed in the meantime the National Recovery and Resilience Plan presents itself instead in the guise of an emergency. Much money risks being lost, others wasted, if not falling into the hands of criminals. And if all this happens, we run the other risk, which is also serious in a democracy: of not knowing whose fault it is, indeed of not even fully understanding what happened.
It is an argument that may appear at first glance boring and tiring to follow, because it is “technical” and because it is linked to a series of rules often set out in bureaucratic language, but it is worth trying, given that many billions and possible transformations useful to all.
The European Commission has given space to individual countries to develop their own projects, but by setting some constraints. One concerns the distribution of programs: an important part must go to innovations considered priorities for Europe (the so-called “ecological transition” or the replacement of environmentally harmful practices and technologies with more sustainable ones, and digitization. Everything must be destined to interventions on the system, i.e. long-term: the aid plan was not conceived to “raise cash”, to fill old deficits, but to renew economies and structures.The second constraint concerns implementation times: the funds are actually disbursed as the projects presented are realised.
Right on implementation times, to which the release of funds is linked, we are faced with the first and main emergency. The country is already now clearly and seriously lagging behind. Of the thirteen programs that should be completed within this month, five have been completed, ie about 38%. If this is the trend, most of the resources obtained, which are not all free (it should be remembered) risk being simply thrown away.
And the problem didn’t arise all of a sudden: our country is always among those that waste the most European funds. This is the case for a variety of reasons, the slowness of the bureaucracy, the national regulations which often hinder the implementation of the European ones, and we often add the incompetence of politicians and the generalized disinformation on the matter. But that this is the case has been known for some time, it was certainly known when the Pnrr programs were prepared. And this was known when the first tranches of funds were used to meet the money needs of various administrations and not for the projects for which they were intended.
If these problems were not taken into account in drawing up the projects and in the first phase of construction, can the warnings of many now suffice, from the President of the Republic to the Court of Auditors, to the European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Gentiloni? Is it acceptable that one responds by asking for extensions like a delinquent tenant does or by accusing Gentiloni (as Salvini usually does) of not serving the interests of his country? And if, good will aside, a lot of money will certainly be lost, whose responsibility is it?
There are two other issues that are much less talked about, and which, indeed, in the rush to “complete the programmes” risk being completely forgotten. First of all, a large portion of the funding has been attributed to a fuss from small projects, which boast the little words “environment”, “digitization” and the like but are above all designed to obtain funds and that’s it: this is certainly the case for many university programs, but also elsewhere. Basically, wasted money.
Furthermore, with the ecobonus money we have seen how ready it is crime to get their hands on public money as otherwise intended. We’re not just talking about the big mafias, but also about many less visible, often improvised groups and small groups. If some of the money goes to them, it will be worse than a waste.
For all of this, responsibility cannot be attributed only to the current government, given that the knots that are now in the comb began to form years ago.
But the question remains: will it be possible to identify someone responsible? One of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt, said that democracy should be everyone’s power, bureaucracy is nobody’s power. We experience it every day. In the planning and spending of Pnrr funds between the state, regions, municipalities, è difficult to identify the subjects who have made the projects wrongthose who block and delay, those who are objectively unable to act.
But must we resign ourselves to losing billions and billions, to seeing unrealized projects that have been awaited for years, “because of no one”? The task of the minister with responsibility for the Pnrr today Raffaele Fittoshouldn’t it also be to find at all levels those responsible for the implementation or non-implementation of the plan, to stimulate them and, if necessary, to call them to their faults?
And then if democracy does not exercise any real control over the Pnrr in public debate, nor in the confrontation between political forces, it is also because very few really know the matter, and often only in a fragmentary way, on the basis of the localities where they operate or topics that are best known. Would a great communication effort be possible to make citizens understand the framework of the plan, and how it evolves? There is almost nothing that cannot be communicated, if at least one tries as one has hardly done so far, and public opinion awareness would be one of the main tools for making things work better.
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