EU green light to the Por of Piedmont and Liguria, Basilicata and the Pon administrative capacity are lagging behind
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The work of the European Commission continues in approving the national and regional operational programs for the new programming period of the cohesion policy. Today, Tuesday, the Por Fesr of Piedmont worth 1.5 billion euros, and that of Liguria (650 million) have been given the go-ahead. The work is progressing quickly and by mid-November at the latest almost all programs should be approved. To cause concern about the times, as emerged on the sidelines of the European Week of Regions underway in Brussels, there are only two programs, that of Basilicata (delayed because the region has decided to create a single multi-fund ERDF and ESF + program, appointing a new authority management), and above all the national cohesion capacity program (CapCo, for lovers of acronyms), whose objective is to strengthen the spending capacity of European funds by the public administration. An objective made even more difficult by the overlap of different financing plans: the tail of the 2014-2020 programming, the debut of the 2021-2027 one and finally the mass of resources of the NRP. To this end, the partnership agreement makes available to the CapCo (entrusted to the Cohesion Agency) more than 1.2 billion in ERDF, ESF + and national co-financing funds. The strategy includes two actions: strengthening the professionalism of local authorities in less developed regions through the recruitment of new human resources, and administrative regeneration plans (PRigA) which will identify actions to strengthen the capacities of the managing authorities of ERDF programs, with a special attention to digitization. The basic objective is to push administrative strengthening beyond the regions, reaching the intermediate bodies and municipalities. The Commission would like the funds to be disbursed against measurable targets, but on this aspect it is complex to find an agreement, both for the definition of the objectives and on how to monitor progress in the individual regions which then draw on a national plan.
Bad administration and fallout on the spending of EU funds
The main reason, although not the only one, of the chronic delays with which some Italian regions spend European resources destined for territorial convergence is the low capacity of public administrations. According to the data of the European Commission, in mid-2022 our country was in third last place in the EU for realized spending of resources 2014-2020. At this moment the further risk is that the cohesion policy will be cannibalized by the NRP, on whose implementation the same offices are working in many cases. The hope is that the coexistence of the two programs will be able to trigger a qualitative leap in the modernization of the Public Administration. We therefore expect, on the basis of the measures already taken by Italy to simplify and drastically reduce the time for effective implementation of the investment projects of the Pnrr, that the “race” to meet the commitments also increases the spending capacity of EU funds.
And if it were the NRP that opened new scenarios for cohesion?
In addition to acting as a driving force for the modernization of the PA, the works carried out within the framework of Next Generation Eu could also open up new spending opportunities for cohesion funds. According to experts, since the limit for the expenditure of the NRP funds is set for August 2026, the 2021-2027 programming of the structural funds could find a “dowry” of works and projects to be completed. The Commission could grant the necessary flexibility not to waste the resources available. However, the purpose of cohesion policy is precisely to counter the emergence of territorial inequalities which are also caused by the concentration of investments. To avoid this, careful monitoring of the works carried out with both funds will be necessary to ensure that the cohesion ones maintain the objective of convergence and that they are used to extend the benefits of the NRP to the more peripheral and marginal areas.
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