(Finance) – Some interventions envisaged by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan they cannot be completed by 2026 as planned. This is the message launched by the Minister of European Affairs and the PNRR, Raffaele Fitto, during his speech yesterday at the presentation of the Report of the Court of the Counts on the PNRR in the Chamber. “Some interventions between now and June 30, 2026 cannot be carried out, and it is mathematical, it is scientific that this is the case, we must say it clearly and not wait for 2025 to open the debate on who is to blame”, said Fitto.
“We need to open one assessment careful to understand how to recover the resources of those projects that are within the PNRR, but which have a spending capacity that allows a realignment with the Cohesion”, he added.
From the semi-annual report of the Court of Auditors it emerged that the peak of spending for the Plan “will occur in two-year period 2024-2025with annual values that will exceed i 45 billion“. The new planning of expenses – explained the accounting magistrates in their report – contemplated a forward “translation” of over 20 billion in total of the expenses assigned to the three-year period 2020-2022. Starting from 2023 there will be a “recovery in the trend expenditure” with an acceleration on the initial framework, of over 5 billion. At the end of 2023, despite this recovery, the level of cumulative expense it should remain almost 15 billion lower.
As regards last year, i 55 goals of the second semester 2022. However, the Report specifies that 38 initiatives “cannot naturally be considered completed, as they may require further implementation steps, with respect to the objectives agreed at European level”. While in the current semester the Plan imposes further 27 European goals: of these, reports the Court of Auditors, only a “quantitative” target has already been achieved. Still in the first half of 2023, 54 “national deadlines” are also to be met.
The Court of Auditors has also criticized the mode Of Finding of personnel dedicated to the implementation of the Plan by the Public Administration. According to the accounting judges, “the procedures for recruiting personnel dedicated to the PNRR with unstable formulas have revealed many difficulties, for the Administrations, in guaranteeing the operational continuity of the structures which, on the contrary, would require a resource framework certainly for the entire time horizon of the Plan”. The recent decree law 13/2023 intervened on this critical issue, however, which allows for the initiation of procedures for the stabilization of dedicated professional resources.
On Monday, Minister Fitto had met the EU Commissioner for the Economy, Paul Gentiloni, and the PNRR task force of the EU Commission. “It was agreed to extend the assessment phase by one month to allow the Commission services to complete the technical sampling and verification activities, continuing the fruitful discussion”, Palazzo Chigi said in a statement. In particular, “further study” was requested by “three measures approved by the previous government”: port concessions, district heating networks and two projects within the integrated Urban Plans.