(Finance) – “We cannot continue to have dozens and dozens of small projects” linked to the PNRR, “it is essential to transform them into a few large projects, with the possibility of concentrating resources on large strategic interventions”. This was stated by the Minister for European Affairs, the South, Cohesion and PNRRRaffaele Fitto, speaking at the Forum’Southwards’ organized in Sorrento by The European House-Ambrosetti.“You have to have the courage to tell it like it is – he added -. Pursuing small projects takes us off the radar, from the context of an international dimension that Italy and the South can carry out. It is extremely important to coordinate the Pnrr expiring in June 2026 with the cohesion policies which expire at the end of 2029 and the national funds, which have no expiry date. The connection of three floors can generate a common vision and it is necessary to establish a time schedule that accompanies the construction of the works to be sure of the interventions. It will also be possible to envisage substitutive powers for defaults, with the certainty of carrying out the intervention”. Finally, for Fitto, it is necessary “to have few objectives and the ability to attract new investments not in an uncoordinated way, also with regard to the context, in order to also have the support around the investment”.
“Today we are in a program revision phase and we can modify and correct these forecasts in agreement with the European Commission, tomorrow we will no longer be able to do it and we will risk losing resources”, he added, explaining that “We have the objective to review these choices, and to review them also with the table launched yesterday with the Regions, in order to be able to build also on the cohesion front and on the Development and Cohesion Fund, in the light of what has been the experience that we have known up to now, a profound change of approach”.
Fitto also spoke of the extraordinary wave of bad weather that hit Emilia Romagna, an issue that “deserves the direct attention of the Government, which will meet on Tuesday for this and will give immediate answers”. “We try to give answers because we are all strongly affected by this tragedy – added Fitto – then there will be a need, in agreement with the ministers concerned starting from the work that Minister Musumeci is carrying out, to give organic solutions. Today there is an emergency and we face it as such, immediately afterwards we must finally face these situations in a structural way. Today we express full solidarity with the populations and imagine direct and concrete interventions for the emergency because there is a need for this”. concluded the minister