Make good use of the Recovery Plan funds, or to put it more correctly of Next Generation US, would result in Italy's GDP growing by more than 10 percentage points between now and 2030, putting it back in line with the pace of the other European Union countries. This scenario is estimated by a report by the Bolognese study center Prometeia, which however specifies: to recover the gap, "reforms and a qualitative leap in terms of productivity are needed, which will allow for an acceleration of recovery in the next three years (GDP +3,8, 2021% on average per year between 2023 and 2022)". All this starting from a very difficult situation, with the economy which will only be brought back to pre-crisis levels at the end of XNUMX, i.e. in almost two years. “The pandemic – writes Prometeia – leaves a legacy for Italy the worst recession in times of peace, with a fall of 8,9% of GDP in 2020″.
During the past year, 150 billion euros of GDP were burned, 108 billion of consumption, the employed are 435 thousand less, public debt has gone from the 27,9 billion it had fallen to in 2019 to 156,3 billion. However, the expansive policies of the last two governments have already produced an initial recovery, which will be further strengthened with the arrival of European funds. “We will do worse than other countries (Germany and France) – continues the study – but much better than in the past two crises, when pre-crisis levels had not yet been recovered in 2019, more than 10 years after the outbreak of the first. In this context, the Btp-Bund spread could fall below 90 basis points at the end of 2023". In detail, Prometeia traces a hypothetical scenario: “Italy has potentially allocated 209 billion euros to be spent over six years. For Italy, Prometeia estimates that the additional expenses (therefore not those already planned) financed with these funds amount to 120 billion, using all the non-repayable grants available (81 billion) and around 40 billion in loans, which would however be resorted to only starting from 2024”.
A total amount in line with the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) which however is still being defined and which Prometeia estimates that in 2021-2023 approximately 70% of what was planned will be achieved: "This due to the critical in the implementation of the works, evident in the delays of the past”. The real decisive impact of the Next Generation EU will instead be in the medium to long term. Setting 2030 as the time horizon, Prometeia outlines two possible scenarios. The one in which the use of funds is accompanied by structural reforms (“by initiating reallocations towards more innovative sectors thus favoring a recovery in productivity”) would translate into an increase in Italian GDP of 10,5% compared to that of 2019, i.e. an average annual growth of around 2%, with public debt at 135% of GDP. “A cautiously optimistic outlook which, in the second half of the decade, sees per capita GDP growth in line with that of the major countries in the area”.
In the second and more negative scenario, however, the potential of resources deployed by Europe is not fully exploited, preventing the Italian economy from filling the growth gap that has gradually formed over the last 25 years: GDP according to calculations and forecasts of Promethea it would thus be only 2019% higher than the 5,8 level, with public debt still at 151% of GDP. "A scenario that is not dramatic, but one which in any case relegates us, perhaps definitively, to the weak economies of the area", mercilessly writes the research.
