After the Commission, too the EU Council gives the green light to the changes made to Italy's targets for requesting the fourth installment of the Pnrr. An approval that has been awaited since July, i.e. since our country submitted the request for modification.
Italy's modified plan "covers 10 measures, including incentives for energy efficiency under the so-called Super bonus, the increase in childcare facilities, the development of the space and film industry and sustainable transport", they say from Brussels.
“This morning, together with my European affairs counterparts gathered in Brussels for the General Affairs Council, we adopted the decision that definitively accepts the requests for modification, presented by the Italian Government, of some objectives relating to the fourth payment request of the Pnrr. It is a very important result which rewards the work carried out in recent months and which we welcome with great satisfaction, said the Minister for European Affairs, the South, cohesion policies and the Pnrr in Brussels Raffaele Fitto.
Thanks to the changes, Italy will be able to “present the relevant request for payment and start the procedure for the disbursement of the 16,5 billion euros foreseen for the fourth installment of the Pnrr", explains Fitto.
EU: “Growing risk of delays”
“The implementation of the Italian Pnrr is underway, but with an increasing risk of delays. Italy has presented three payment requests, which correspond to 151 stages and objectives of the plan and which involve a total disbursement of 42 billion euros (referring to the first two payment requests submitted)". This is what we read in the chapter dedicated to Italy of the second annual EU report on the implementation of the Recovery Fund. “Proceed quickly with the implementation of the plan and the negotiation of its modification is essential due to the temporary nature of the Recovery in force until 2026,” reads the document.
The changes to the fourth installment
The EU Council recalled that last July Italy had asked to modify the Pnrr as the plan was "partially no longer feasible due to objective circumstances". The Commission had deemed the changes justified and that "they do not affect the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and coherence of the Italian recovery and resilience plan". The estimated total cost of the modified Pnrr remains unchanged, equal to 191,5 billion euros, of which 68,8 billion euros in grants and 122,6 billion euros in loans.
Returning to the fourth instalment, the changes presented by Italy concern 10 objectives of the original 27, to which is added the milestone relating to university accommodation, postponed from the third to the fourth tranche.
The review concerns in particular policies for aerospace, nursery schools, ecological transition in the construction, road transport and rail transport sectors, experiments for hydrogen in railway mobility and in highly polluting sectors, support for women-owned businesses and to the fight against educational poverty.
Svimez: 7,6 billion defunded for the South
According to Svimez, up 15,9 billion euros of Pnrr interventions defunded based on the revision of the Plan drawn up by the government, approximately 46% (7,6 billion) concerns projects of Noon and “not all were reported as critical in implementation” or “identified as critical in last May's Report”.
The resources freed by the defunding of the measures "Internal areas - Strengthening community services and infrastructures" and "Valuation of assets confiscated from the mafias" are allocated to financing the incentives for businesses envisaged as part of the new "Single SEZ in the South". Svimez therefore underlined the need to “immediately identify alternative sources of financingor for measures removed from the Plan".
Terna: new interventions for 840 million in the revision of the Plan
“In February this year, Terna began discussions with the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security for new interventions to be included in the revision of the Pnrr, within the REPower Eu chapter,” he declared Francis Del Pizzo, director of Network and Dispatching Development Strategies of the Terna company during the hearing on the Report on the implementation status of the Pnrr convened at Palazzo Madama Senato by the joint Budget commissions of the Senate and the Chamber.
'In detail – he added – in the measure for electric transport networks, three interventions were included for a total contribution of 840 million euros: 500 million euros for the eastern section of Tyrrhenian Link, the submarine electric cable that will connect Sicily to Sardinia and Campania (while the western section received authorization from Mase a few days ago), 200 million euros for the direct current connection between Sardinia, Corsica and Tuscany (SA.CO.I. 3, which received all the regional agreements awaiting the authorization decree from Mase) and, finally, 140 million euros for the construction of projects on technology development and skills".
Del Pizzo concluded by expressing "the hope of continuing along the path undertaken by the Government to simplify the authorization and implementation procedures to accelerate the completion of the works, anticipating the related benefits for the country".
