Italy penultimate in Europe for EU funds spending: what does it mean?

At the end of last December, Italy spent 62% of the resources provided by the European structural funds in the 2014-2020 programming, placing itself in the penultimate place in the EU ranking, only worse than Spain (57%). This is what emerges from an analysis of the data published on the Cohesion Data portal of the European Commission, which cover the trend of the allocations of the 2014-2020 programming. Italy, which spent just over 50% of resources last October, has made a leap forward in recent months but is still below the European average, which stands at around 76%. In order not to lose resources, our country will have to absorb the funds that have not yet been spent or reported by 31 December 2023. In the meantime, the partnership agreement for the European Structural and Investment Funds 2021-2027 was signed in July 2022, therefore in total, Italy can count on over 75 billion euros between European resources and national co-financing. The resources arriving from Brussels amount to 43.1 billion euros, including the amounts allocated to the Just Transition Fund – and to European Territorial Cooperation.