Remote friction between the Italian Government and the EU Commission, after the green light to the amendment to the Pa Decree which limits the controls by the Court of Auditors on the Pnrr.
The intervention of the EU Commission
“We have an agreement with Italy on the need to have a control system effective in terms of spending Pnrr funds and it is the responsibility of the Italian authorities that these bodies are able to work,” said a spokesperson for the European Commission. “The Italian authorities have set up an ad hoc body responsible for monitoring Pnrr funds, we will monitor with great attention what the draft law provides in this regard of the Court of Auditors”, he added.
“As a general rule – we do not express ourselves on bills and therefore we do not go into detail. We can say that the Pnrr requires a proportionate response given its unique nature, being a performance-based spending program – he added – National control systems are the main mechanisms to protect the EU's financial interests and it is the Member States that must make sure there are no conflicts of interest and fraudthe. And Italy has a solid system in place”.
The response of the Italian Government
Through a note, Palazzo Chigi makes it known that the Government shares the fact that “the Recovery needs a framework of controls that are suitable and proportionate to its unique nature and so that spending programs are based on efficiency. Government action is based on this principle”.
Then the direct attack: "The EU Commission spokesman says that the 'European Commission does not comment on the bills, but immediately afterwards - without any further investigation of merit – the spokesperson himself followed up with considerations that fuel instrumental political controversies that do not correspond to reality ”, continues the note.
In his long note, Palazzo Chigi also underlines that the rules proposed by the government and approved in the commission in the legislative decree on public administration they do not change what has already been agreed between the European Commission and the Italian government.
Cassese: "The Government was right to limit the preventive control of the Court of Auditors"
"The government has done very well to limit the prior control of the Court of Auditors,” he said Sabino Cassese, president emeritus of the Constitutional Court, during a meeting at the Turin Economy Festival. “There are aspects of merit on the controls and method on the way this story unfolded that completely give right to the government and demonstrate that the large state corporations should rethink the way they act vis-à-vis the state they represent”, explained Cassese.
In an interview with Il Foglio, the constitutional lawyer reiterates that it is "a sacred choice, which helps to put the relationship between public administration and controllers back in the right perspective".
“The controls that the Court of Auditors exercises, on the Pnrr and beyond, are a valuable institution. But all the culture on the subject suggests that controls must have some characteristics. First of all, don't be knocked down, but randomlyCassese explained. Otherwise “they end up extending too much and going very little deep. Secondly, they don't have to be checks that are limited to paper, but which analyze the essence of things. Finally, they must be exercised as little as possible in preventive or concomitant form: because this type of control too easily generates forms of co-management, with the result that the administrator feels either terrified or de-responsible. In the concomitant control there is the denial of the independence of the Court of Auditors, which should be the eye of Parliament', not the guardian angel of the employees”.
