Blocked expenditure for EU funds 2021-27: only 0.9 % out of 74 billion

Flat calm. That the spending of European structural funds by Italian regions and ministries is proceeding with difficulty is a historical fact. But in the 2021-2027 programming it is taking on worrying dimensions, bordering on the grotesque. At the end of April, out of the EUR 74 billion available, actual spending stood at just EUR 621 million, 0.9 per cent of the total. This is derived from the latest quarterly transmission of data to Brussels by the programme management authorities. No sign of acceleration compared to the end-December data indicated in the update note to the Def, when expenditure stood at 535 million (0.7 per cent). Without a truly radical turnaround, it will be impossible to use all these resources, which come from the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund +, plus national co-financing, in time. If this were the case, there would be automatic decommitment and the money would go to other Member States.
Split up into some fifty programmes managed by regions and ministries, the funds must be committed by 2027 and spent by 2029, but at this rate it would not be enough for a couple of decades. If one really wants to look for a sign of life, one can look at the increase in spending commitments, which have risen in four months from 4.2 to 6.8 billion, but are still less than 10 per cent of the available sums. By 2025, spending will have to reach at least 7 billion to avoid triggering the automatic decommitment rule and having to forfeit European resources.

Entirely justified, therefore, is the European Commission's urgent call, contained in the recommendations to Italy approved on 19 June, to "accelerate the implementation of cohesion policy programmes," an objective considered "crucial, together with the strengthening of administrative capacity at the national level but especially in local authorities. The Commission therefore asked Italy to take advantage of the mid-term review to revise each programme by next March, taking into account the 'challenges' identified in the EU recommendations, in particular the disparities that persist between the Centre-North and the South. "In addition to strengthening administrative capacity," the Commission writes, "it is particularly important to rapidly implement investments in research, innovation and competitiveness, particularly in less developed regions, in parallel with infrastructure development plans and regional strategies for smart specialisation. Furthermore, Italy "should continue to improve the quality of essential public services in the southern regions, in particular water and waste treatment services". Among the Commission's other suggestions, in the long paragraph dedicated to cohesion, are the training and retraining of workers, the reduction of young people not working and not studying (NEETs), and support for women seeking employment.

The spending of European funds reflects the general difficulties of the country-system in realising public investments. The administrative reinforcement plans requested by Brussels from the Italian regions more than ten years ago (Fitto was Minister for Regional Affairs in the Berlusconi government), in an attempt to improve the capacities of public administrations, from the planning phase to the implementation and reporting phase, are testimony to this. Moreover, the high level of litigation, coupled with the long time taken by civil justice, has not helped: all too often when a tender is awarded, the company that comes second appeals. To these 'historical' causes and the initial delay of the 2021-2027 programming due to Covid, new ones were added. The NRP has produced a strong 'displacement effect': these are large resources (two-thirds in debt) that finance more or less the same things as the structural funds, but with a simpler and faster disbursement mechanism, based on achieved objectives and not on specific reporting of expenditure. The funds of the NRP, moreover, must be spent by 2026, while the others are two years longer. Hence the very high political and media attention on the NRP and the oblivion for everything else, including the Supplementary Plan.

But there are also other reasons that are contributing to the stalemate. Wanting to put public investment policies in order, the minister for European Affairs, the South, Cohesion Policies and the NRP, Raffaele Fitto, has intervened profoundly on the governance of cohesion, in a logic of complementarity but also of centralisationo. In February 2023, with the amending decree of the NRP, it outlined a reform of cohesion by decreeing the closure of the Cohesion Agency, which took place in December. Resources and competences were transferred to the Department of the Presidency of the Council for Cohesion (Dpcoe) divided into five general offices, one of which is still without a head and another only a couple of months ago. Fitto's reform (approved by decree at the beginning of May this year and still under discussion in Parliament for conversion) imposed the Cohesion Agreements on the regions (those of Campania, Puglia, and Sardinia are still missing) to bind them to a shared list of projects and to release resources from the national Development and Cohesion Fund. The first (Liguria) was signed in September 2023; only at the end of April 2024 did the CIPESS approve the 17 already signed but the registration of the Court of Auditors is still missing. Moral: the regions have still not seen one euro, resources in many cases necessary for the co-financing of the European structural funds. There has been no lack of tension between the minister and the governors, which in the case of Campania has reached the Council of State. Moreover, until a few weeks ago, the managing authorities of some national programmes were still missing.

Time is running out but the expected positive effects of Fitto's reforms are still not visible.