Towards the new cohesion policy between competitiveness, governance and upcoming challenges

European cohesion policy was created with the intention of supporting the economic growth of the less developed territories of the Union in order to foster balanced growth. For decades a dominant pillar of the European economic policy agenda together with agricultural policy, it is now being rethought in the context of the proposal for the European budget 2028 -2034, which inevitably reflects the changed global context that has matured in recent years. Cohesion policy, whose funding is mainly allocated to less advanced regions, such as those in our Mezzogiorno, is set to change profoundly. On the one hand, it will be integrated into the Commission's new priorities, in particular European industrial policy, boosting competitiveness and defence. On the other, its governance, historically characterised by a multi-level approach, will be reviewed. This was discussed a few days ago in Rome during the conference 'Governance and transitions in the new cohesion policy: the evidence and the reform' organised by the Rossi-Doria Centre of the University of Roma Tre and the CNR.

After the 2008-2011 crisis, cohesion policy is faced with a new situation, characterised by an increase in regional development disparities in a context of weak growth: the advance of China and other emerging countries in the hi-tech and advanced services sectors, the restructuring of global value chains and, more generally, a geopolitical and industrial framework that makes the external projection of all European regions more fragile and the internal demand for economic security more demanding. Within this premise, cohesion policy must redefine priorities and instruments, avoiding remaining anchored to an idea of convergence and regional development that presupposed linear globalisation and a stable and predictable macroeconomic environment. What is needed is a reworking of the place-based approach that, since the early 2000s, has guided the structure of cohesion by becoming more aware of the territorial effects of the new international dynamics. Four lines of action in particular appear decisive.

The first is to integrate the objective of territorial cohesion with the need to increase the competitiveness of the European economic system. The issue is not to 'shift' cohesion towards industrial policy, but to recognise that today convergence and local development also depend on the ability to include less advanced regions in strategic European industrial chains, including those related to defence and economic security. For Italia, this means building connections between the production fabric of less advanced areas - especially in the Mezzogiorno - and new investments in technologies, advanced manufacturing, and services related to the green and digital transition. In a context of scarcer public resources and conflicting priorities in the EU budget, cohesion must catalyse private investment: reduce risk and uncertainty, strengthen infrastructure and human capital, and improve the quality of local contexts so as to make a long-term localisation strategy credible for businesses and investors. To do this, new governance is needed, capable of ensuring project implementation times that are compatible with those of investments in innovation, and ways that incentivise the private sector to use 'cohesion' as a lever in its own development strategies.

The second line concerns governance, taking into account the Commission's strategic thrust towards a re-centralisation of programming. This may represent an opportunity to simplify procedures, speed up expenditure and ensure successful implementation - a necessary condition to strengthen the legitimacy of the policy itself in a phase of increasing competition between public priorities. However, the reorganisation must respect two constraints. Firstly, maintaining a strong European anchoring of the policy. Re-centralisation must not correspond to a return to fragmented national policies precisely when Community coordination and the European 'scale factor' are fundamental, and when the European model of investment policies - made up of rules, strategic orientation and evaluation - has proved more effective than national action, especially in complex contexts such as that of the Mezzogiorno. Second: not to dissipate - even in a context of strong simplification - the heritage of administrative capital and territorial knowledge built up over the past decades by regional and local managing authorities. The objective is not to replace this infrastructure, but to support it where it is lacking in order to preserve the capacity to design interventions rooted in the real needs and specific opportunities of the territories, while avoiding redundancies and ambiguities in responsibilities that reduce accountability.

The third line is to integrate some elements of the results-based NRP framework into cohesion, streamlining administrative procedures and strengthening the emphasis on results and impact. The logic of targets and objectives can help shift the focus from mere procedural compliance to actual performance, making the link between resources deployed and changes produced more transparent. But for this shift to be virtuous, there is a need for evidence-based learning: a careful assessment of what the NRP has actually achieved, distinguishing between speed of implementation and the ability to generate measurable, persistent effects linked to concrete needs, especially in less dynamic areas. The speed of expenditure, in fact, does not automatically coincide with significant impacts in the medium term; and a 'results-oriented' cohesion must know how to measure what really counts, with instruments and timeframes consistent with the maturation of territorial effects.