Revision of the Pnrr, the government splits. Salvini to Fitto: “I’m not giving up a euro”

ROME. “The National Recovery and Resilience Plan must be dismantled”. The revolution announced by Minister Raffaele Fitto, which the government expects to close with the European Commission by the end of August, is shaking the government. “We are not giving up on any project, we want to spend all the funds”, Matteo Salvini, Deputy Prime Minister and number one in Infrastructure and Transport, raises his voice, surprised by Fitto’s idea who told this newspaper yesterday that he wants to “profoundly change the objectives foreseen two years ago and now superseded by events». Fitto considers “a large part of the Pnrr not expendable”, therefore the executive is imagining “a definancing of a series of non-strategic interventions on which there is the certainty that they will not be implemented”. According to the head of European affairs, large works will have to be cut by 30% and a reflection on small ones is also needed, because “pulverizing into tens of thousands of projects” is unrealistic. June 2026, the deadline for investments, “seems far away but it’s very close”. After reading La Stampa on Monday, Salvini spoke to the exponent of the Brothers of Italy: «The goal as far as the government and I are concerned is to spend all the funds in the Plan well, especially those for infrastructure because we have a gap with other European countries that we need to fill. Therefore – underlines the secretary of the League – neither the return of the money nor its non-spending is absolutely on the agenda, at most some items can be remodulated ». Salvini recalls that he has “40 billion euros in his portfolio to put on the ground to modernize and guarantee infrastructure safety, but if they give me more for the water emergency to build dams and reservoirs, I’ll spend it”.

Fitto claims that yesterday’s article contained “phrases and summaries” that he did not pronounce, but La Stampa confirms every word of the conversation that took place in Modena, on the sidelines of the Criminal Justice Festival.

The Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso, Fitto’s party colleague, tries to defend him: “He has been misunderstood”, and criticizes Mario Draghi’s plan: “Everyone knows what has been done in this country, when maximum resources were requested in debt, when the projects were presented in a few days, one stacked on the other. Some have already been rejected, let’s think of the stadiums. We will not make the same mistakes that previous governments made: we will confront Brussels prepared and responsible”. Urso assures that the Meloni government does not want to dismantle the Pnrr: “We have always reiterated that we want to review the resources allocated to the individual chapters to make the best use of them, for projects that can actually be built within the times and in the ways required by the European Commission”.

The opposition goes on the attack: «The government should stop screwing up the Pnrr. After Minister Fitto’s words, a parliamentary passage is needed that gives certainties», affirm the presidents of the parliamentary groups of the Democratic Party, Chiara Braga and Francesco Boccia. The Democratic Party proposes that a policy act be voted in the House and Senate that “clarifies the choices that the government intends to make”. To Minister Fitto who would prefer to use Pnrr resources as incentives for businesses, rather than for investments in infrastructure, the group leaders of the Democratic Party respond as follows: «These are serious and unacceptable words, for months we have been asking to know the feasible projects, the methods of managing funds, Europe’s willingness to accept changes to the plan. Time is up: Lease should come to Parliament to tell us what he wants to do, thinking for once of the good of the country and not of propaganda ».

The economic head of the dem, Antonio Misiani, sees the center-right raise the white flag: «After losing seven months by evoking a revision of the plan that no one in Rome and Brussels has yet seen, and after deciding on a change of governance that risks losing as many, we are unconditional surrender.

Action leader Carlo Calenda was also tough, commenting: “To say that the Pnrr needs to be redone without explaining how it is wrong and dangerous for the country’s image”. —

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