Flexibility vs. Rigor: Italian NRRP’s recent refreshment open to a new awareness into the stability pact members states final negotiations

In these days the Italian government obtained the green light from the European Commission for the remodulation of its NRRP "Italia Domani" in sight of the definitive approval previewed for the first decade of coming December.

This is an important step both for Italy and for Europe as the "new " NRRP represents both for size and relevance of the changes a unicum among the instruments financed by the Recovery and Resilience Facility of NextgenerationEU.

Firstly, grants and loans rise from 191,5 billion to 195,3 billion euro. No European program had ever allocated a similar amount to a single Member State and by separating the part lent (EUR 122.6 billion), the part of contributions, of 71.8 billion euro, is second only to the financial package granted to Poland for the cohesion policy 2021-2027 (75.4 billion euro to be spent in a longer time).

Secondly, because of the nature and extent of the adjustments made to the plan originally presented by Mario Draghi in Brussels. Apart from the new chapter dedicated to energy saving (which becomes the seventh pillar of the Recovery and Resilience Facility) financed by the Repower EU plan to deal with the energy crisis generated after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and now planned in all the member countries' RDPs, Italy has done much to discuss the removal from the Plan of over 15 billion euro originally intended for Italian municipalities mainly for investments in resilience, land enhancement, energy efficiency, hydrogeological risk prevention and management.

Projects, as denounced by the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI), largely ”at work”. Resources now intended to support the Italian industry 5.0 plan for energy efficiency of businesses, support for areas affected by floods in Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Marche, telemedicine and new investments for networks and infrastructure just to mention some of the key items.



The reasons given by the Italian government for this important refreshment of the Plan are based on the awareness that many of the projects originally included in the plan and started before the introduction of the recovery and resilience facility, would not have the characteristics requests to pass the final exam in Brussels (think of the respect of the 'Do No Significant Harm' DNSH principle) and therefore should be replaced as soon as possible. In addition to these investments, all small projects have been removed, which has convinced the European Commission and less to the Italian municipalities to which the government has, however, secured funding by national resources.

In conclusion, the whole operation of "securing" the Italian Recovery and resilience plan can be considered positive for two reasons. The first is that, after the initial misunderstandings, it paid the choice of agreeing well in advance with the Commission any change or rescheduling of milestones and targets (the payment of the fourth instalment was also authorized, the first European country to have requested it).

The second is that in this state of continuous and permanent crisis (now the Israeli Palestinian’s one) the reprogramming of interventions must no longer be considered an exception but a common rule, naturally holding firm the principle of recovery and resilience. Flexibility has been shown to be more successful than rigor: a message to the Member States that must launch the new Stability and Growth Pact by the end of the year.