The “revision” of the Pnrr becomes the decisive crossroads on the future of the Corriere.it government

What’s after Cape Horn? The Budget law and the Pnrr are the stumbling blocks on the government’s route, which must avoid the provisional exercise and achieve the objectives of the Plan. Then we will enter the open sea. Only then will we begin to understand the fate of a political system that is experiencing a process of deconstruction resulting from the electoral result. In the centre-right, Lega and Forza Italia are going through a very critical phase, with Salvini forced to face the landslide of the party in the northern strongholds by Bossi, and Berlusconi committed to covering the divisions between his ministers and his parliamentary groups with ever greater difficulty. The “shoulder” in Meloni’s polls is producing splits in the Carroccio and situations from separated at home among the Azzurri. In this context, the balance of power in the coalition protects the prime minister from any hypothetical maneuver that could destabilize her.

If his allies are like this, his opponents are even weaker. Not only is the opposition front divided, but the party that has so far represented the pivot of the center-left is losing its role to the advantage of the grillini and risks splitting. The meetings of the Democratic Party are a bet rather than a competition for the secretariat: even the primaries are considered “dangerous” – as the mayor of Pesaro Ricci said yesterday – for the coexistence between the progressive and the reformist areas. And when the Apulian governor Emiliano warns that in the future the party will no longer have to have relations with the Third Pole but “can only ally with the M5S”, in fact he invites the former Renzians to the door.

In short, the political framework would seem to offer Meloni a dominant position in the system. But the navigation of his government will not depend on the structures in Parliament and on the balance of the party. When he has rounded Cape Horn on December 31st – protecting the Stability law – the shield of the “emergency phase” which in some ways protected the work of his cabinet, forced to launch the maneuver in a very short time, will end. With the beginning of next year, however, the prime minister will have to start deploying her project for the country. That will be the moment of “verification”. And, as a minister points out, “after the honeymoon it will be necessary to see if the government relationship is consolidated”. The allies are waiting for her to test, but that won’t be the real obstacle.

«The verification for Giorgia will be in Brussels – explains an authoritative representative of Fdi – when he will have to negotiate the remodulation of the Pnrr with Europe ». Here is the crossroads. The outcome of the mediation will affect the driving force of the government and will also establish the horizon of the legislature. At Palazzo Chigi they are aware that “the investment program of the Plan and the Cohesion Funds are the only resource tools at our disposal”: a flow of over four hundred billion “which we could not obtain through the Stability Law”. With the country’s public accounts, finding money to allocate to a goal is already a feat. That would not be enough for the government and would not be useful.

There’s a reason why Fitto – who has the delegation on the Pnrr and works in close relationship with Meloni – has started consultations on the subject with colleagues from the other dicasteries and with their ministerial structures: single meetings that last a couple of hours, during which – says one of the participants — an «magnetic resonance» is made on the problems encountered in implementing the Plan. Government sources ensure that the goals set for December 31 “will be completed”. Otherwise, the missing parts would be included in a decree law which would also contain the governance.

But the goal is obviously not just the end of the year. The prime minister is interested in understanding what would happen after passing Cape Horn, i.e. whether the system would be capable of “grounding” the resources to be invested in the following years. And it is clear why the technical nodes have a political value: they could confuse Meloni’s strategy or they could facilitate it, solving the problems of the majority. “Weddings – whispers a loyalist of the premier – cannot be done with dried figs”.

In short, the “Brussels verification” will be the “government verification”. A positive outcome could kick-start the government’s multi-year project on reforms: that of the taxman, of the Autonomies, of justice, of the Constitution. Otherwise it would be a game to live. Who knows for how long.