Pnrr, behind the Italian delays the tensions between Palazzo Chigi and the Mef and the energy node – Corriere.it

If Brussels is in a hurry to see Italy’s changes to the National recovery and resilience plannot only because of the success of Rome Ursula von der Leyen you play a small part of your future. Of course, maybe even that a little: the president of the Commission among the architects of the Recovery and of the choice to grant Italy the largest share of the funds; if the project fails in the most emblematic country, for some of the governments that have always been less enthusiastic about it, it would certainly not be an argument for von der Leyen’s re-election in 2024. Behind the haste in Brussels, however, there is above all a practical reason: the guarantors of the resources of the Pnrr are precisely the European governments, who will necessarily have to approve the proposals of the government in Rome after the Commission itself has done so; the procedure will take months and, if you wait any longer, there is the risk that there will be little time left to make the investments by the 2026 deadline.

The three factors of delay

Meanwhile, three factors are making themselves felt in Italy which lead the Minister for European Affairs, Raffaele Fitto, to procrastinate. The first is linked to the balance in government. Those who know the Pnrr system well estimate that the funds potentially subject to a change of destination weigh, at most, between 12% and 15% of the 191.5 billion destined for Italy. So between twenty and thirty billion at most, which would already be a lot. But to identify the investments to be cut or moved, Fitto turned to those who hold the secrets: the various ministerial administrations which, in theory, each have the picture of the state of implementation of their projects. Here the self-preservation instinct of bureaucracies kicked in, because many ministries are far from enthusiastic about transparency. No one is in a hurry to risk being deprived of funds, just because some construction sites are not up to speed.

State accounting on the margins

At this point the second factor of delay began to make itself felt: the cold fell – more than among politicians – between the offices of the Ministry of Economy and Palazzo Chigi. Fitto and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wanted the management of the Pnrr and traditional European funds to be moved to the presidency of the Council. Seen by the Ministry of the Economy, it was the amputation of resource management powers for almost three hundred billion euros. This turn and Fitto’s own reservations put on the margins the State Accounting Office, which is part of the Ministry of Economy. Over twenty Pnrr workers have recently left the ministry, so the Plan’s financial control capacity is suffering. as if, on the Recovery, the main center of know how financial government had stood at the window waiting for the mistakes of others: If someone wants our skills – says a voice from inside – they take them and do with us what they think.

The plans of RePowerEu

Here the third reason for the Italian delays is triggered: the need to integrate the rewriting of the Pnrr with the RePowerEu plans, i.e. the energy autonomy projects supported by Brussels. Meloni and Fitto asked the large investee companies – Enel, Eni, Snam and Terna – for plans and they presented them: from the electricity grids from South to North, to a new floating regasification terminal, to the capture and seizure of polluting emissions, to a potential increase in the production of photovoltaic panels in Italy. For now, the cost of these projects exceeds the reserve available for RePowerEu, which includes 2.7 billion new non-repayable transfers from Brussels and around three billion from traditional European funds. The rest therefore may have to be financed with the resources that are potentially about to be freed up with the changes to the Pnrr. It is therefore impossible to do one thing without the other. Each small piece must be assembled together with all the others, with the risk that one wrong move will blow up all the others. an administrative-financial puzzle with a high degree of difficulty: not exactly a traditional Italian specialty.