A plan for total coverage of Italy with ultra-broadband and one to relaunch the South. These are the next two interventions on the agenda of the Renzi government.
THE ULTRA-BROADBAND
The first is valid for everything 12 billion: 5 private and 7 public, of which 4,9 come from Executive initiatives and 2,1 from Regional Structural Funds. The first 2,2 billion have already been allocated by Cipe, the Interministerial Committee for Economic Planning.
“It's a real novelty for our country – Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said yesterday after the Council of Ministers -, today we approve the funding and the first interventions will start in the autumn. We have written the first check: the telephone operators are left with nothing but to get involved. The goal is total coverage of the country. We put it into fifth gear, into sixth gear at full speed towards the ultra-broadband. This is the country's future: if today we are the last wheel in the cart, within three years we will be leaders in Europe”.
The Prime Minister also underlined the importance ofyesterday's agreement between Tre and Wind and the investment of 750 million announced by Telecom for the Centre-South: “To those who say 'what are you doing in the south?', there can be no better answers than these. While some cry, others do”.
THE SOUTH
And precisely on the subject of the South, the new plan - which will be announced today by Renzi at the direction of the Democratic Party - plans to unblock almost 100 billion between old and new EU programmes, untying the co-financing of European funds for 4 billion a year in the period 2014-2020 from the stability pact (therefore 28 billion in 7 years) and introducing a mechanism that grants more money to those who know how to spend it, less to those who trudge and zero to those who stop.
In detail, the Community resources to be allocated to the Southern Regions are divided as follows: 9-10 billion of old European funds must be reported by 31 December (otherwise they will be lost), 50 billion of EU funds from the 2014-2020 programming and another 54 billions of the Development and Cohesion Fund (FSC) to be used again by 2020, of which 43 intended for the South (80%).
But how to spend the money available? Renzi's intentions are to divide the program into at least four sectors: industry and SMEs, culture and tourism, school and the environment, small and large public works.
Then there is the still unsolved problem of the control room: Graziano Delrio and Claudio De Vincenti have passed the baton in the role of undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council, but the delegation of EU funds has remained in the hands of the Premier.
