Pnrr investments accelerate, target 2024 to 22 billion

Actual spending on Pnrr investments is beginning to accelerate, although the real change of pace, at least in the government's hopes, is linked to the ministerial decree on unblocking payments that should see the light next week to implement the rule of the Omnibus Decree in which the maximum limit for cash advances to implementing entities is raised to 90 per cent of the value of the work.

The figure emerged yesterday in the last control room of the Fitto era, convened at Palazzo Chigi by the minister for the NRP, the South, Cohesion Policy and European Affairs before his expected farewell today to take up his post as executive vice-president of the von der Leyen Commission in Brussels.

The meeting, in which the Lega Nord ministers were absent with the sole exception of the quick appearance of Roberto Calderoli, was the occasion for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's official thanks to Fitto, who, with a hint of irony, confessed that she had been moved on several occasions when reflecting on 'her' minister's European move. "I am very proud of her work," the Prime Minister emphasised, assuring that it would go on uninterruptedly "with the same rigour, the same passion and the same spirit of self-denial". Although not even yesterday did the premier want to reveal the cards on the succession (see adjacent article).

On a practical level, the most significant fact is that the long-promised acceleration in actual NRP spending is finally beginning to turn from wish to reality. This can be seen from the figures shown yesterday by the executive, according to which actual payments had reached EUR 58.6 billion by 30 October. This implies that in the last few weeks alone, invoices for EUR 5.1 billion have been settled and recorded by the Mef's ReGis brain, thus more than doubling the pace of previous months (at the end of July, spending stood at EUR 52 billion). The actual outlays for 2024 should therefore reach 22 billion in December (which would bring the total to 64 billion), thus meeting the indications of the Minister of the Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, even if the numbers remain well below the approximately 44 billion forecast for this year in the initial financial progress plans.

That of October, however, should be the first move in a gradual acceleration that will find new fuel in the implementing decree with which the MEF and the other owners will be able to turn over to the implementers all the liquidity needed to pay for the works in the timeframe shortened by the abolition of the tangle of preventive verifications that have been mandatory until now. The novelty is particularly awaited by municipalities, which are in the front row in the implementation of Pnrr investments, as recalled yesterday by Anci president Gaetano Manfredi. "Open municipal worksites are 78% of the total," the mayor of Naples returned to claim, "as opposed to 63% of the other implementing bodies, and the liquidation of the states of progress of works remains the first critical issue.