Brussels does not like the Government maneuver, which as is known has paved the way for a possible one infringement procedure against Italy. Among the consequences of any European Union measure, there is also the possible freezing of funds for developing regions, especially those of the South. This is a hoard of around 80 billion euros (almost 40 arriving from Brussels, the rest thanks to state co-financing), which according to the EU regulation should be due to our country in the period 2021-2027.
A scenario that Svimez, the association for the development of industry in the South, defines as “disastrous. A further repressive element for the South“, said director Luca Bianchi. A consequence that would therefore bring out one of the many contradictions of this executive's political line: on the one hand, to help the south through the distribution of the citizen's income, on the other, to penalize businesses and local administrations that could invest those funds to relaunch a economy that still marks the pace compared to that of the rest of the country.
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However, the path is still long, we will not know more before June 2019. In the Union's plans, that money should be used to projects dedicated to young people, innovation, digitalisation, climate, environment and safety. Italy has already demonstrated in the past that it does not know how to take full advantage of this opportunity: in the 2014-2020 period we are the penultimate country in the whole EU for the percentage spent on the funds disbursed by Brussels. Only Croatia is worse than us. With the difference, however, that Italy is also the third largest contributor to the European budget, with almost 14 billion euros. So far that money had partially come back to us, but we haven't been able to invest it. Tomorrow, if the Commission really were to open a procedure, we would no longer even have them available.
