The impact of the NRP on economic growth

With 2026 approaching, it is time for the first assessments of the impact that the NRP - entering its final year - has had on our country's economy and society. The questions are many, and while few of them can be answered with scientific precision, it is not true that we cannot learn much from the data available when we tie them to our theoretical knowledge of public intervention in the economy.

 First of all: is it true that we would have had lower economic growth without the PNRR? There is not the slightest doubt, just refer to the Bank of Italy's studies on the expansive effects of the multiplier of public spending on investments. Given the large sums activated annually by the NRP and the modest growth rates achieved and expected between 2023 and 2026, we can say that the NRP has certainly prevented the country from ending up in stagnation like Germany or even in recession. But there is more. Again from the Bank of Italy, we know that when such increased spending in public investment (of quality, a theme to which we will return later) is made in deficit (as was the case for most PNRR spending), the growth it generates is such as to reduce, and not increase, the Debt-GDP ratio. We can therefore also say that thanks to the PNRR, we have avoided the growth of the debt-GDP between 2024 and 2026 being even greater.

It is also true, however, that the way it was conceived by the EU and the way it was managed by Italy, the PNRR has not developed its full potential. Even its approval procedures (which were absolutely avoidable at the initial negotiation stage) have in all likelihood damaged the Italian economy. In fact, Article 10 of the text signed when the PNRR was signed required the Member State receiving the funds to continue, on pain of suspending payment of the instalments, on the path of deficit reduction and the achievement of primary surpluses, the so-called austerity. This is how it was: in the Public Finance Planning Document 2025 recently approved by the Council of Ministers, for example, the nominal value of the surplus envisaged by the planning numbers can be calculated: from 11.7 billion in 2024 and 20.35 billion in 2025, it rises to 27.9 billion in 2026 (an increase of about 7.5 billion, the net effect of the current financial bill) and 46.5 billion in 2028, all increases that could and can be achieved in only two ways, with tax increases or spending cuts, at a time when our economy is barely growing and would need the opposite. Without this Art. 10 clause, which acts as a masochistic ballast, demanded by Europe, the NRP would have avoided sealing an austerity that prevents it today from performing as well as it could in favour of the country's GDP and debt reduction.

Then there is a further lack of economic growth: that resulting from spending that has not been made or has been made but late. The numbers available to us tell us that of the total 194 billion appropriated, 85.8 billion had been spent by September 2025, and therefore another 108.2 billion had yet to be spent. If we continue with the trend we had from January to September 2025 (2.4 billion/month), we could estimate a forecast of total expenditure to 2026 at around 121 billion, with a delta compared to the target of 72 billion. Assuming, on the other hand, a more optimistic trend, with spending of about 4 billion/month, as we read from several sources, we would arrive at the end of 2026 with about 146 billion in spending, with a delta therefore of unspent 48 billion.

What will happen with the remaining unspent portion at the end of the PNRR? What we know from cross-reading the various documents is that, of the unspent delta, some 20 billion will flow into the new financial vehicles activated with the latest revision of the PNRR and can be spent after 2026. We also know that the Commission authorises Italy to use the debit share of the unspent funds on cohesion policies and therefore these resources would become the co-financing share of the cohesion funds.