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Recovery plan: Italy remains unable to spend the European windfall

2023-06-07T18:22:29.042Z

Highlights: Giorgia Meloni withdraws from the Court of Auditors the control over the progress of the European recovery plan. Vincenzo Smaldore, who closely follows its execution for Openpolis, does not mince his words: "The Italian plan has failed, and the government is not able to achieve the objectives that had been set in agreement with Europe" From now on, the court will only control expenses upon completion of the work. Italy is the largest beneficiary among member states, ahead of Spain, of this major €750 billion aid package put in place after the pandemic.


Giorgia Meloni withdraws from the Court of Auditors the control over the progress of the European recovery plan.


Rome

Is the European recovery plan, which was supposed to be a tremendous opportunity for Italy, with €191 billion in loans and grants from Europe, turning into a nightmare for Giorgia Meloni's government? While Rome has already submitted its requests for changes to Brussels several times, Vincenzo Smaldore, who closely follows its execution for Openpolis, a platform for monitoring public spending, does not mince his words: "The Italian plan has failed, and the government is not able to achieve the objectives that had been set in agreement with Europe, He seeks to radically change it."

Already on 25 May, the Court of Auditors had sounded the alarm about the low execution of the planned expenditure under the plan: from 1 January to 12 May this year, 1.15 billion euros were spent out of the 33.8 billion planned for 2023. This criticism has earned the bearer of bad news to be stripped by a vote of Parliament of his power to control the progress of projects as they are implemented. From now on, the court will only control expenses upon completion of the work.

" READ ALSO How Mario Draghi, the "magician", offered twenty months of stability to Italy

Alarmed Commission spokesperson in Brussels recalled that the plan "requires an adequate control framework proportionate to its unique nature as a results-oriented spending programme". And that "it is the responsibility of the Italian authorities to ensure that these (control) bodies can function". Giorgia Meloni immediately replied that she was only resuming the a posteriori control mode planned by the Draghi government in May 2021, and that the concomitant control of the court inhibited elected officials. Clearly, if there are delays, it is because of... the Court of Auditors.

"Without us, who controls?"

This muzzling arouses the ire of the opposition, but also of the judges of the Court of Auditors, starting with its prosecutor, Angelo Canale: "While this is an unprecedented public investment, and in a very short time, the European architecture of the plan requires States to take all measures both to control the regularity of expenditure and to promote corrective actions in the event of waste or misappropriation. It is a specific obligation. Without us, who controls? Who guarantees that public money is not wasted?

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"The objective of the concurrent control was to highlight possible shortcomings in the functioning of the administrative machine," said former national anti-mafia prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho, who fears the infiltration of corruption.

" READ ALSO Italy unable to use European funds

In any case, muzzling the Court of Auditors will not solve the many problems. "Italy will have spent only 25 billion to date, instead of the 65 billion planned for this phase (2021-2023)," explains Vincenzo Smaldore. This delay is no longer recoverable today." In total, Italy's recovery and resilience plan, which received the formal green light from the Commission in June 2021, covers €191.5 billion, of which €122.6 billion in loans, with the rest coming from grants.

Italy is the largest beneficiary among member states, ahead of Spain, of this major €750 billion aid package put in place after the pandemic.

An alarming state of play

While since his arrival in October, the Meloni government has centralized supervision of the plan at Palazzo Chigi without publishing anything on its execution, it presented its first report on May 31. Which in the background draws up an alarming state of progress. This shows that 59% of the funds were spent on measures unrelated to the plan (including 8.7 billion in the ecobonus). That 48 billion of major public works projects are pending. That in order to move forward on certain projects, the administrations have sacrificed the major cross-cutting objectives set by the Commission, such as the place of women in the economy, that of young people and the development of the South. It also shows that the ReGis computer system, which is supposed to centralize all the data on the plan, is defective, and the government itself lacks reliable information on what is really being implemented.

See alsoGiorgia Meloni wants "more Italy in Europe"

Because central and local governments, especially in the South, are all in difficulty. The management of calls for tenders turns into a headache, officials do not succeed, and sorely lack technical expertise capable of coordinating the different administrations. The 500 or so "Draghi boys" recruited on fixed-term contracts to manage the plan are leaving the ship themselves for lack of prospects.

'Putting everything back together with Brussels'

So the Italian government, which is already struggling to obtain the third tranche of 19 billion euros for the second half of 2022, has decided to give up requesting the fourth of 16 billion at the end of the month. " While it fails to spend the60 billion that has been planned to date, and fails to meet the conditions set, Giorgia Meloni's government wants to rethink everything with Brussels, defining a new contract, new objectives and a new timetable, explains Vincenzo Smaldore. But this presupposes that it can conduct a real political confrontation with Europe and that it is able to deliver a real strategic vision. " Answer at the end of August?

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2023-06-07

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