"There are two ways to try to fight the North-South divide, there is the citizen's income and the citizenship infrastructure."
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said this in Campobasso, before signing the Agreement for development and cohesion with Molise: "Income was the response of those who could not solve the problem and kept people in a condition of marginality. Citizenship infrastructures are the responses of those who invest in the territory to change opportunities, because the territory is not doomed, its destiny depends on how much it can fight on equal terms. It is the response we are trying to give."
"It is a challenge to get out of the commissionership, President Roberti, it is a challenge to strengthen healthcare", said the prime minister, addressing governor Francesco Roberti who shortly before had underlined the need to overcome the commissionership of regional healthcare.
"Today Europe has an energy supply problem, we are looking at clean energy sources: Southern Italy is a huge potential producer of clean energy. From the crisis" in Ukraine "which led us to review our agreements, to diversify energy production, in Southern Italy, with the right investments in the production of clean energy, we can build the future and a piece of the country's strategy".
"I'm doing a bit of counter-information to news that doesn't correspond to the truth. With the latest budget law, the health fund reaches its highest level ever, 136 billion euros. When Covid was there it was 12" billion.
We have concentrated on the great issue of waiting lists." "It is false that we have cut resources for hospitals - he added -, resources for healthcare have increased with Pnrr and have remained unchanged for other sources of financing.
We have secured some measures that risked losing resources: due to the timing of the Pnrr, when it is not possible to complete the work for 2026, those resources are returned.
We have moved measures based on acceptable timescales, but there is not a euro that is wasted on healthcare."
The signing of the agreement between the government and the Region
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni arrived at 11.40 in Campobasso.
She stopped to greet the crowd and take some photos, then she entered the Savoia theater in the Molise capital to sign the Development and Cohesion Agreement between the Government and the Region with the President of the Region Francesco Roberti.
Present at the ceremony were the mayors of the municipalities in the region, the parliamentarians, councilors and regional councilors of the majority and opposition, as well as representatives of many other local institutions.
The agreement provides for investments in the Molise area of almost 445 million euros, funds that will be used to carry out around a hundred projects in ten different sectors.
"With the agreement - it is written in the document divided into 9 points - the parties undertake to support a unitary program of interventions on the territory of the Molise Region, aimed at the infrastructural, economic and social development of the territory".
The majority of the funds, over 155 million, will go to the Transport and mobility sector, followed by Business Competitiveness (76 million);
58 and a half million will go to urban redevelopment, 40.7 to the environment and natural resources, 35.6 million to culture, 17.4 for energy, 16.8 for administrative capacity, 11.6 for research and 'Innovation;
finally there are Social and Health (9 million) and Digitalisation (5 million).
Italy has many gaps and cannot disperse resources
"In a nation like Italy which has many gaps and few resources, we cannot afford for resources to be wasted."
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said this in Campobasso, before the signing of the Agreement for development and cohesion between the Government and the Molise Region, reiterating the innovations decided by the executive for the development and cohesion funds.
"We are here today for the signing of the cohesion agreement, but don't blame me if I take half a step back on the work that the government has carried out. There is very complex and precious work behind the signing of this agreement - he added -. These are matters that do not find much right of citizenship in the media which often prefer daily controversy. These funds serve to combat the gaps between territories, they are resources that are organized for multi-year programming cycles and are precious. When we are when we got into government we realized that, especially in the territories where resources were needed, a large part of the resources were not spent".
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