Cohesion policy: 'Without European funds, Lombardy also comes to a standstill'
Guido Guidesi, Development Councillor, is concerned about the reform hypothesis: 'Giving a stronger role to the Member States would erase regionalism'.
3' min read
3' min read
Resources to reduce dependence on critical raw materials, investments for the digitalisation of SMEs, training programmes for the digital transition and the arrival of AI, funds to support presence at international trade fairs to broaden horizons to new markets in difficult times for exports, strengthening of production chains, measures for the energy efficiency of companies, and aid for listing on the stock exchange. And the list could go on and on. All projects that Lombardy fears having to abandon without the cohesion funds coming from Brussels.
The ventilated reform of European funding destined directly for the regions is still causing alarm, and raising the tone is Lombardy's Councillor for Economic Development Guido Guidesi, who goes so far as to fear 'an Italian locomotive without petrol, which could come to a standstill, with significant repercussions on national GDP after 2027'.
The crux of the dispute lies in the next programming of the European multiannual budget 2028-2034, which the Commission is expected to officially present in mid-July and on which the first discussions have begun. One third of the EU budget is currently accounted for by cohesion funds, which Brussels allocates to the regions. A cake that is already set to shrink as a result of enlargement and that could be further cut to finance European defence. But the real issue that concerns Lombardy, and with it most of the European regions, is the management of those funds: that is, the move from regional control to a national plan for each member state that would then distribute them on the model of the NRP.
'Apart from the health budget, as a region we are dependent on European programming. My department alone, which operates in Europe's leading manufacturing region to support companies, is 98 per cent dependent on European funds,' Guidesi says. 'If Lombardy has achieved the results it has, it is because it enjoys an autonomous ecosystem for the management of those funds. With nationalised management, delays and distance from the territory, the risk lies in what happened with the pnrr, which sees difficulties in grounding without the regions,' he urges.
The 2021-2027 European programming for Lombardy means 2 billion from the Regional Development Fund (ERDF), 1.5 billion from the European Social Fund (ESF), 100 million for Interreg Italy-Switzerland (IT-CH), plus 827 million from the National Strategic Plan of the Common Agricultural Policy, for a total of more than 4.4 billion over seven years.
