Pnrr, 48% of the plan to be revised: changes especially on the railways

The new remodelling of the NRP, on which the government began negotiations with the European Commission two months ago, is finally taking shape. But the picture is not definitive, because the fate of crucial programmes, such as Transition 5.0, remains on the list of unknowns.

The list of the 107 corrections requested by the administrations in charge of the interventions (96 investments and eleven reforms), thus covering 30.4% of the 351 objectives (out of a total of 621) still to be achieved in order to obtain the last four instalments of EU funds, punctuates the 25 pages of the 'summary' report with which the Minister for European Affairs, the NRP and Cohesion Policy, Tommaso Foti, presented himself yesterday in the steering committee. The proposal was approved by his government colleagues and the representatives of the territorial authorities. But it is the same government document that specifies that the ministries urge changes for 170 targets and milestones, i.e. 48% of the remaining deadlines to be met.

Negotiations with Brussels are ongoing, after the official start of discussions on the revision on 21 March, and the traffic light should come on, at least in the government's hopes, 'by the end of June'. But it is the same report that warns that this will not be the last stage in the rewriting of the Plan before the 2026 deadline, because the European Commission 'has deemed it necessary to focus its assessment on the proposals relating, primarily, to the seventh instalment'. Off the radar, therefore, remain, for the time being, central chapters such as incentives for companies - the executive has announced on several occasions its intention to divert Transition 5.0 resources towards development contracts and other more attractive measures for companies -, the possible further downsizing of the target on kindergartens, integrated urban plans for cities in difficulty, and so on.

The heart of the corrective measures that have already been formalised focuses on the 'revision of a large part of the railway investments', which involves high-speed trains both in the south (on the Apice-Hirpinia lot in Campania and on the Palermo-Catania in Sicily) and in the north, particularly with regard to the Terzo Valico dei Giovi. Weighed down in this context are the unforeseen geological hitches, encountered both in the Ligurian Alps and in Campania, but also the "delays in the development of the executive project" that on the Salerno-Reggio Calabria "have led to the erosion of the time margins for the realisation of the work". As anticipated on these pages, the reshuffling of targets aims to finance with Next Generation Eu funds the works that are most likely to be completed within the next year, shifting to different funds, national and cohesion programming, those that take longer.

But there is more to the rich railway strand of the new NRP remodelling than this, because the Ministry of Infrastructure led by Matteo Salvini also proposes a comprehensive reform of programme contracts to 'improve the infrastructure planning of lines' and 'introduce performance measurement of management and infrastructure investments'. These objectives will be achieved through a law that will introduce the key ingredients of the NRP, i.e. milestones, targets, performance indicators and quality criteria, into the programme contracts, strengthen the powers of the Transport Regulatory Authority (Art), and impose 'an in-depth cost-benefit analysis' of investments exceeding 50 million euro. The new framework, in the name of competition, will also encourage the release and tendering of sub-lots from existing contracts and will initiate a feasibility study for 'the creation of an independent state-owned vehicle to ensure that rolling stock and maintenance services are available in sufficient volumes to incoming operators'.