Court of Auditors and Pnrr, the EU: “Adequate controls are needed”. Cassese: “The government’s intervention is right”

BRUSSELS. The government’s tightening of preventive control by the Court of Auditors on Pnrr projects is under observation by Europe. A spokesman for the European Commission explains that “we have an agreement with Italy on the need to have an effective system of controls regarding the expenditure of Pnrr funds and it is the responsibility of the Italian authorities that these bodies are able to work”. The Italian authorities “have set up an ad hoc body responsible for controlling the funds of the Pnrr”, but the EU will monitor “with great attention what the draft law provides in this regard by the Court of Auditors”

As a general rule – continued the spokesman of the European Commission – “we do not express ourselves on the bills and therefore we do not go into detail”. but «we can say that the Pnrr requires a proportionate response given its unique nature, being a spending program based on performance. National control systems are the main mechanisms for protecting the EU’s financial interests and it is the Member States that must ensure that there are no conflicts of interest and/or fraud. And Italy has a solid system in place».

Meanwhile Sabino Cassese, president emeritus of the Constitutional Court, underlined during a meeting at the Festival of Economics in Turin that “the government has done very well to limit the preventive control of the Court of Auditors”. He explains: «There are aspects of merit on the controls and of method on the way in which this story took place which prove the government completely right and show that the large state corporations should rethink the way they act towards the state of which they are the representatives.