EU funds, Italy diverts 3.1 billion to strategic technologies

More than 3 billion of the European funds will change destination: they will finance projects in the strategic value chains identified by the European Commission: digital technologies, clean technologies, biotechnology.

The reorganisation data, which are still partial, concern what has already been communicated to the Department for Cohesion Policies by the Regions, the Ministry of Enterprise and the Ministry of Labour regarding the manoeuvre provided for in the Cohesion Decree to support the Step platform (Strategic technologies for Europe platform).

The decree in fact set two time windows (by 31 August 2024 and by 31 March 2025) to carry out reprogramming, taking advantage of the benefits and flexibility promised by Brussels to those who redirect part of the 2021-27 resources, generically earmarked for competitiveness or of other kinds, towards the three major European industrial policy objectives.

The 3.1 billion - a non-final figure that emerged during the setting-up meeting of the 2021-27 Partnership Agreement Committee - refers to the first window closing at the end of August and is largely the result of the choices made by the Regions of Southern Italy, which alone are expected to amend the Programmes for a total of 2.26 billion, while 540 million come from the National Programmes managed by Mimit and Lavoro and 290.4 million from the more developed Regions.

To sum up, Regulation (EU) 2024/795, which established the Step programme, had two objectives. First, the development or manufacture of critical technologies in three areas: digital and 'deep tech' sectors (such as artificial intelligence, internet of things, blockchain); clean and efficient technologies, including those with zero net emissions (e.g. photovoltaics, wind, electrolysers, batteries, carbon capture and storage); biotechnology, including critical medicines. The second objective defined by the regulation is to address labour and skills shortages in these three value chains. The EU has also set an indicative target for the reprogramming of cohesion policy 2021-27, i.e. a cap of 20 per cent on ERDF resources (corresponding to about EUR 5.3 billion for the resources allocated to Italy), while it has not communicated a limit for ESF+ and Just transition funds. The Member States that redirect resources in this direction are in fact rewarded with a Step seal, a sort of EU quality label that should help attract additional alternative public and private investments. But the real advantages are two very useful elements of flexibility in the management of cohesion funds: eligibility for programmes also for large companies, which would otherwise be excluded; maximum EU co-financing rate of up to 100 per cent; additional one-off pre-financing; and the possibility of avoiding the mid-term review on the use of funds.