(Finance) – Also at the center of today’s agenda are the meetings of the PNRR Control Room with businesses and unions at Montecitorio. The Minister for European Affairs, the South, Cohesion Policies and the Pnrr will chair the government meeting Raffaele Fitto. The calendar has been rescheduled in consideration of the state funeral of Giorgio Napolitano which were held this morning.
“We certainly agree on definancing things that we understand well do not have the right timing, we don’t really like a somewhat transversal method of taking entire groups of projects and works and simply removing them. We have received reassurances on this”. ANCE vice-president Piero Petrucco said this on the sidelines of the control room with the government on the PNRR. During the meeting, he reported, “we reiterated some fundamental points for us such as that of guarantees: the system of counter-guarantees expiring in 2023 has finally been developed and therefore it needs to be extended. Just as we asked for attention to the aid decree for the compensation of the increase in prices which we believe is essential to extend to 2024”. With Minister Fitto “there was a truly very participatory climate, we all said that we welcome this possibility of dialogue direct” he concluded.
“We look with particular interest at the new RePowerEU chapter included in the Pnrr and, in particular, at the measures accompanying the green transition of the production sector and encouraging self-production from renewable sources by SMEs”. As Luigi Taranto, general secretary of Confcommercio, on the Pnrr control room. “The titles and description of the measures are certainly interesting – continues Taranto – even if there remains an urgency to put all these tools on the ground, making them usable by citizens and businesses as soon as possible. It is then necessary to further encourage self-consumption, both in individual and aggregate, and unlock the funds already foreseen to support energy communities. In any case, the effective inclusiveness, sectoral, dimensional and territorial, of the interventions of the Italian chapter of REPowerEU remains to be verified”.
With food prices rising by +10% in 2023 and international tensions on trade and prices, the strengthening of Pnrr funds to invest in agri-food production is strategic to stop speculation in the shopping cart, reduce dependence on foreign countries from imports, cut energy costs with photovoltaics on stables and farms and support transport with investments in logistics. This is what the president of Coldiretti says, Ettore Prandini, on the occasion of the Pnrr control room at Palazzo Chigi with the Government commenting positively on the increase in resources for the sector, awaiting the green light from Europe. “Made in Italy agri-food has concretely demonstrated its ability to seize the Pnrr opportunity with investment requests for supply chain contracts exceeding the budget – he underlines – and the increase in funds goes in the desired direction of increasing production in key sectors, from pasta to meat, from milk to oil, from fruit to vegetables and to cool the cost of living which weighs on the pockets of Italians and on the costs of businesses. A unique opportunity, which should not be wasted to grow and guarantee greater fair distribution of value along the supply chain, from producer to consumer”.
“Our country has credibility in Europe at the moment thanks to the government’s good negotiations: with 61 billion received including the third installment, we obtained the highest budget so far for Pnrr. Italy is therefore the largest construction site in Europe, but now companies must be able to complete the works within the agreed timescales.” This is what he underlines Roberto Capobianco, national president of Conflavoro PMI, today at the Control Room on the Pnrr at Palazzo Chigi. “However, there is concern regarding the effectiveness of the economic return of the part of the debt we are contracting, which clearly manifests itself in the realization of investments and infrastructures of the Pnrr itself. To annul any fear it is therefore essential to achieve every objective of the Plan – says Capobianco – and this is only possible by favoring the work of companies as much as possible. It is therefore necessary to facilitate access to credit, facilitate the fair participation of SMEs in procurement, simplify and reduce bureaucracy. We appreciate the revisions on digitalisation and tourism, infrastructure , education and social inclusion: attention is paid to SMEs, self-employment and corporate training. The introduction of a single SEZ in the South is also important to encourage the economy and development of the South”.
“We appreciated the positive atmosphere, this continuous advancement of the control room is certainly important. However, we told the Minister that we need to take a step forward to involve the world of small and medium-sized industries because up to now it has remained a bit on the margins of the PNRR plans”. This was stated by the president of Confapi Cristian Camisa leaving the control room meeting on the Pnrr chaired by minister Raffaele Fitto. Confapi, he added, underlined that “it is increasingly important that there are simple, intuitive tenders tailored to our companies so that this can allow us to be able to join these tenders, improve, and have a fundamental leverage effect to be able to develop our world and become sustainable. Otherwise the world of SMEs risks being excluded from the market in the future.”
“We have confidence in the Government’s intentions to maintain overall investments and resources in implementation of the Pnrr, without dispersing the projects, and, at the same time, to commit to achieving effectively achievable objectives, without creating public finance problems or failure to collect the repayment installments of the Plan in the coming years”. This is the comment of Maurizio Gardini, president of the Alliance of Cooperatives, during the meeting with the minister Raffaele Fitto on the Pnrr. “It is necessary to clearly define which funds and for which amounts, with which competent authorities and with what timing – he said – also in compliance with the clause of 40% of resources in the South, any movement of resources and/or reduction of the reference target should respect this clause, defining in greater detail the timing, competent administrations, amount of resources assigned and from which fund (with different management methods) while understanding the reasons for financing repowerEU”. The Alliance of Cooperatives has also put forward proposals on individual measures of close interest to cooperatives.”