EU verifier of NRP targets: 'Italia country with the best implementation rate'

Italy's Pnrr? "It is the country furthest ahead in implementation, precise like a Swiss watch with eight successful disbursements, 166 billion already collected (86% of the total) and a model for the governance framework for economic policy coordination".

Singing resounding praises, on the Milanese day of the (almost) end of the Pnrr mission "A challenge is told" is the most unexpected speaker among the parade of ministers and local administrators. Declan Costello, deputy director-general of the European Commission's Ecfin, is in fact the verifier of last resort in Brussels that enables the payments of the various tranches of the Plan. Irish, remembered as 'very strict' in last June's verification, halfway through his speech in front of the audience of students, journalists and administrators changes register: 'Now I'm talking about Italia. If you ask me which country is furthest ahead in terms of Plan implementation, I will answer: Italia has the largest share of disbursement, 86% of the total with the eighth instalment it is at 166 billion out of 194, like France, which however with the same percentages has a different order of magnitude (34 out of 40). Italia is the country with eight successful disbursements, precise as Swiss watches. I must admit that I did not expect, in May 2026, to find myself here saying that the country with the best implementation rate would be Italia (and I would add that I was in good company). But it is a great achievement'. Costello goes even further, showing that he is not superficially familiar with the 'patient': 'I also think that this result is something that you in Italia should reflect on, because in many respects this half-year cycle of major reform-related disbursements has provided a framework for the implementation and coordination of economic policy.

Such a brilliant picture, if only because of the third party nature of the draughtsman, has the power to overshadow the very reports of the Italian ministers, starting with the host Tommaso Foti (European Affairs, NRP and Cohesion Policies). Anticipating the data that a few minutes later Declan Costello would even expand on, the Piacenza minister also lifted a few pebbles: 'I read that we would have taken money away fromIndustry 5.0. Granted that it was included in the NRP by this government, we have put back all the money planned, there is not a single exodus. Just as the accusation that we have taken a billion for the water sector is false'. But today is no time for polemics, Foti closes with 'compliments to Liguria (Marco Bucci is in the front row, ndr) for the capacity for commitment and spending of which we can be legitimately proud'.

'Absolutely positive' follows the assessment of Paolo Zangrillo, Minister for Public Administration. "The Pnrr for modernisation provided content and speed of implementation. We have internalised a sense of urgency in the Pa, a value that was not there before. The situation we inherited was 10 years of blocked turn over, lost 300,000 people, average age of 52, training of 6 hours per year'. Here too a pebble was thrown away: 'I hear falsehoods that Pa is redundant. The ratio of residents to employees is 5.8 per cent, in other EU countries it is 9 per cent'.

The simplifications brought by the Pnrr in the Pa 'will be in force throughout the country with no time limits,' Foti concludes, 'and in this respect, as a demonstration of positive intuition, I would like to quote the president of the National Confederation of Craftsmen who, when he saw this rule come out in the decree law, commented: at last we have breathing space for 800,000 businesses that will be able to save 2 billion euro a year precisely because of the simplifications introduced.