Delays in tenders and in the conclusion of projects, overall expenditure equal to only 14,7% of resources, changes that could force Italy to resort more to the market. This the state of the art of the Pnrr which emerges from the Memo on the state of implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan delivered byParliamentary Budget Office (Pub) to parliamentary commissions. An evaluation that made use of the integration of the data contained in the ReGiS monitoring and reporting system available as of November 26th.
Pnrr: 28,1 billion euros spent
What stage is the Pnrr at? According to the numbers provided by the PBO, as of November 26, 2023 they had been a total of 28,1 billion euros spent, 14,7% of European resources: 1,3 billion in 2020 (all planned for the year), 6,2 billion in 2021 (slightly more than planned), 18,1 billion in 2022 (slightly more than planned) and 2,5, 2023 billion in 7,4 (XNUMX percent of the planned). Among the most delayed missions, among other things, is that relating to health, highlights the organization led by Lilia Cavallari.
“The measures that have absorbed the most resources are those relating to incentives for private individuals: the strengthening of the Ecobonus and the Sismabonus amounts to more than 8,7 billion, the tax credit for capital goods (Industry 4.0) over 5,4”, underlines the Upb.
Pnrr: only 6,3% of started projects completed
“The projects launched so far have required the commitment of 66,4 billion over the entire horizon foreseen for the realization, of which 19,2 billion translated into actual spending with payments to the companies assigned the works or provision of benefits. This expenditure includes tax credits but not incentives and tax breaks, which should bring the overall sum of payments to the amount resulting in ReGiS as of November 26, 2023, equal to 28,1 billion", explains the Upb.
On a practical level, i projects started from the actuators are 231.140: 95.502 in the North, 36.528 in the Centre, 81.609 in the South, 17.501 at a national level. Of these, as of November 26, 2023, are concluded 14.631, 6,3 percent, a percentage obtained by averaging the various territories: 9% in the North, 5,3% in the Center and almost 5% in the South. “National projects show the lowest degree of completion, which can plausibly be explained by the fact that they are large-scale infrastructural interventions,” we read in the memorandum. “The delays of the projects originate from the first phases, tendering and assignment of the works, explains the PBO, which then goes into detail: “The delays in the executive planning and assignment phase (the two phases necessary for the tendering and for the start of works) each account for almost a third of all delays and, if unclassified cases are excluded, for over 62 percent of delays for which the phase is known. Just over 75 percent of the phases are late. Overall, the share of situations of delay and completed phases highlights the assignment phase (selection of the company to which to entrust the implementation) as the "bottleneck": those who manage to overcome it then manage to obtain better results in the subsequent phases ”.
From the table provided by the body led by Lilia Cavallari, it emerges that, breaking down the projects into the various phases of implementation, 206 thousand projects out of 215 thousand (96%) are late. The executive planning phase shows delays in more than 92% of cases, even if "in this case there may be technical justifications connected to the adaptation of the projects to the territorial and environmental conditions", the tests are above average and present delays "only" in the 69% of projects reached that stage.
Pnnr between assignments and payments
It goes better if you look at the allocation of resources to the implementing entities. According to the data from the Regis dashboard "a sufficiently advanced stage of the allocation of resources to the implementing bodies emerges: they amount to 141,7 billion projects financed, over 71 percent of the Pnrr”. Net of incentives and tax breaks, the ratio between planned expenditure and Pnnr resources is 71%, while that between payments made and resources committed stands at 14,5%. Including incentives and benefits, the first ratio reaches 90%, while the second 29% "In summary - says the PBO - there would appear to be a satisfactory allocation of resources on projects identified by the implementing bodies (it has been decided what to do) , but the level of payments remains low for the construction works thereof".
The revision of the Pnrr
After the green light from the European Commission for the revision of the Pnrr requested by Italy, the PBO underlines that the changes "they do not coincide entirely with those proposed by the Government last summer. By way of example, definancing of around 16 billion had been envisaged compared to the current 8,3; the resources foreseen for the RePowerEU chapter amounted to approximately 19 billion compared to the current 11,2 billion". The PBO then analyzes the deferrals of the objectives to be achieved both in terms of milestones and targets. “For the current semester, corresponding to the fifth installment (which should arrive in 2024), there is a reduction of 17 objectives (from 69 to 52); already in the first half of 2024 (the one relating to the sixth instalment) there are 8 more M&Ts to be achieved (from 31 to 39), of which 6 relating to the RePowerEU chapter (M7). Finally, it is the second half of 2026 (the one corresponding to the tenth and final instalment) which records the greatest increase in M&T, which goes from 120 to 173 objectives. Also in this case the increase is partly attributable to
deadlines related to the RePowerEU chapter". If 105,9 billion of financing is missing, the fifth and sixth installments are reduced by approximately 11 billion while the tenth goes from 20,7 billion to the current 32,7.
All this could have effects in terms of public finances to be evaluated: “The need for a greater use of the market unless there are compensatory reductions in expenditure in other items of the state budget".
