From Brussels comes an impetuous snapshot of Italy’s spending capacity, regarding the funds made available by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Our country, despite having received the highest percentage of funds, is the one among all the European partners that is the one that marks the pace in terms of utilization capacity.
«So far, Italy has received 52.7 percent of the resources, equal to 102.5 billion euros in pre-financing and four payments for grants and loans, well above the EU average», at 34.5 percent . Therefore, a significant financial flow which did not correspond to an equal ability to spend the money received. An old habit of national politics, even in times when the Pnrr and its copious financial taps could not be counted on: Italy has never been an example to be taken into consideration in terms of its ability to use European funds.
Therefore, at the end of 2023, Italy had spent “only” 43 billion euros, practically 22 percent of the European resources available for the Pnrr. A figure which – but in the photograph of Brussels is present in the background – suggests “the importance of the period until August 2026 for the full implementation, not only of the investment measures”, as stated in the study carried out by the Research Service of Eurochamber which took into consideration the state of implementation of the Plan in the various EU countries.
In the chapter dedicated to Italy, he recalls the Commission’s assessments of the previous payment requests forwarded by Rome, the seven missions that include the objectives of the Italian Plan and some innovations brought about by the review implemented by the government.
«In December 2023, a review made several changes to the plan: it is now equipped with EU resources worth €194.4 billion in grants and loans, representing 26.1 percent of the Recovery and Resilience Instrument» .
This is a slight upward revision of the allocation of grants to Italy in June 2022 and the inclusion of a new RePowerEu chapter focused on energy which led to an increase of 2.9 billion euros compared to the initial plan.
To which must be added the national resources amounting to 30.6 billion euros, deployed by Italy to strengthen a vast program of reforms and investments, aimed at promoting the country’s economic recovery, «addressing a series of structural weaknesses and pursuing important objectives such as the green transition and digital transformation. The measures envisaged by the plan must be completed by 2026″, is highlighted again in the text of the study which adds “Several stages and objectives can be linked to a single investment or reform, which correspond to different phases of their implementation”.
From this perspective «The revised plan has 90 more stages and objectives compared to the initial plan: the revision has moved part of the resources and objectives towards the end of the plan, the tenth installment has become the largest (32.7 billion euro in grants and loans, including pre-financing) and 46 percent of all targets are now linked to it.”
