On the site of www.ripartelitalia.it Edward Bianchia building contractor very close to the innovative ideas of the economic and social observatory “Riparte l’Italia” publishes an interesting speech on the Pnrr which we report in full below.
Italy starts again is a cultural organization born in April 2020 with the aim of collecting the best requests from civil society in digital form and thus selecting ideas and solutions in order to promote a concrete and efficient recovery of the country following the health emergency and the energy crisis. The goal is to concretely create a Big Data on the restart.
A tal fine the Observatory – founded by the journalist Giuseppe Caporale and chaired by the jurist Luigi Balestra – gave life to a Think Tank Quotidianoa web platform of contents with a very evocative name of the aims pursued (Riparte l’Italia), within which to collect and share with the public opinion contributions of ideas and research to overcome the current crisis.
PNRR, no more unfeasible projects. We use the funds to secure the territory
Of Edoardo Bianchi
The theme of the landing of resources is independent of the political color of those who govern, as witnessed by the last 70 years of our history. Bringing everything back to a mere fact of political polychromy means trivializing the theme and consequently not addressing the relative vulnerability. There are Gordian knots, more than one, which must be definitively addressed and resolved without speeches of etiquette aimed at maintaining one’s electoral garden when, this time, the country risks losing an unrepeatable opportunity.
Sacrosanct was the measure of the Government to ask for a rewriting of parts of the Plan; it wasn’t a whim, but the numbers testified to the need for this choice. It is a delay that comes from afar, the Draghi Government has already adjusted the shot because on 31.12.22 we would have had to spend € 42 billion of the Recovery Plan but in the DEF of April 2022 the expenditure figure was updated to € 33 billion and finally in the NADEF of October 2022 was raised to €21bn. The truth, let’s hope we’re wrong, is that maybe this adjustment won’t even be enough because in the next 3 years the difficulties in spending the programmed resources will be significant.
The right direction
It is appropriate to analyze some events of recent days to ask ourselves if we are going in the right direction with respect to the founding principles of the PNRR and its objectives. The PNC also suffers from the same landing problems as the PNRR. In 2022, 40% less was spent than forecast: only €3.6 billion was used compared to the planned €6 billion.
We recall that the PNC contemplated works excluded from the Recovery mainly because they were incompatible with the final date of 2026 but whose realization was not conditioned by the European rules governing the PNRR. Even with simplified rules of engagement construction sites do not start.
The national water system against 385 liters per inhabitant introduced into the network daily, it records a loss of approximately 41% of the water transported; compared to 9.5 billion cubic meters withdrawn, only 5.2 billion cubic meters reach the taps. Maintenance is absent. Moreover, in 2023, 3 out of 10 Italians are not yet connected to a purifier; for this last profile we pay the European Community approximately € 145,000 per day for the infringement procedures activated in this regard.
Despite the more than excellent performance of the rail share, several works are at risk and could be removed from the PNRR and be subject to remodulation. Some railway interventions planned in central/southern Italy undergo a profound review. Roma/Pescara suffers a cut of approximately €570 million, the doubling of Orte/Falconara a definancing of over €300 million. In Tuscany, the interport of Guasticce and Pisa/Vada cut around €300 million. In Lazio, the Rome/Viterbo lines, the Capannelle/Ciampino, the Guidonia/Bagni di Tivoli/Lunghezza, the Vigna Clara/Tor di Quinto lines are downsized; all these latter lines which would have helped to relieve congestion incoming/outgoing traffic from Rome and its hinterland. The same goes for some lots in Palermo/Messina/Catania, as well as the digitization of the airports by ENAV and the implementation of the ERMTS program for railway safety.
There have been several complaints from both ANAC and the Court of Auditors about the failure to comply, in terms of work inclusionboth of young people and women. Almost all predictions have been betrayed and were a cornerstone of the PNRR.
The review of the PNRR also involves a remodulation of the use of the resources Cohesion and Development Funds and RePowerEu.
The PNRR works that cannot meet the 2026 deadline will be transferred to the FCS 2021/2027 which can be accounted for until 2029.
different areas of the country
A significant amount of resources would appear to be transferred for projects located in the North; well, excellent, those with feasible projects should be rewarded rather than returning money, but it should be remembered that the FCS are created for the economic and social rebalancing between the various areas of the country. While we are unable to spend the resources envisaged by the PNRR and the FCS in the South, it is hypothesized that by creating a single SEZ we can finally start/achieve the existing territorial rebalancing. ZES, it should be emphasized, which in these 6 years have not provided great proof of efficiency and which, in the new version, require a unified vision of all the Southern regions.
Essential Levels of Performance (LEP)
The pursuit of territorial rebalancing, perhaps, also brings with it the need to address the issue of Essential Performance Levels (LEP). Are we certain that for the Taranto steel mill (the largest decarbonization project ever to take place in Italy) leaving the PNRR funding, if confirmed, would be acceptable in productive and social terms?
The common feature of all the investment programs remains the caesura between allocated appropriations and payments made, between spending commitments and reported expenditure: the balances are missing. Furthermore, many of the money used up to now have been driven by jobs entrusted to companies or to processes that do not require the involvement of the public hand or btw to programs already activated before the pandemic and for which accountability has been admitted.
It should be reiterated, no shortcuts are needed but the merits of the problem must be addressed: the rules of engagement for the functioning of the public machine.
The example of Cinecittà
Illuminating in this regard is what would seem to emerge on the new development of Cinecittà where the new studios increase from 17 to 9. The eight missing ones should have been built on the lands of Torre Spaccata owned by CDP. Although an agreement has been reached on the purchase price, the latest authorizations are still awaited for the operation to take off. The missing studios will be built, in part, with money no longer from the PNRR but from the ordinary budget.
With the rules and the current climate, the Public Administration, today understaffed both in qualitative and quantitative terms, even when it will be able to fill these gaps, will still not be able to interpret the central role that (the public sector) must necessarily cover in terms of direction, implementation and protection of the common interest.
Budget rigidity
Unfortunately, a new season of fiscal rigidity is on the horizon which, without the necessary reforms, implemented in this recent period of greater flexibility brought about by the temporary framework, will be even more complex to deal with. Surely we don’t continually need new special laws that go beyond the ordinary, we need ordinary rules that must be applied in a context free from continuous witch hunts where the formal correctness of the acts must be concretely declined with doing.
Maintenance and safety of existing assets
We missed a great opportunity when drafting the first draft of the PNRR when we preferred to chase after principles with high-sounding names and parlors instead of concentrating on the maintenance and safety of the existing heritage. Those principles have been betrayed and not achieved while the upkeep and decorum of the cities are lacking. Let us remember that already on the occasion of the G20 held in Rome it produced, among other things, a final document “G20 Rome leaders’ declaration” which in 61 points summarized the political significance of the meeting. Well, in paragraph 44 it is stated that: “… we endorse the G20 Policy Agenda on Infrastructure Maintenance …”;
Not only that, even at the G20 in Genoa it was reiterated that the maintenance of works brings the community more benefits than costs and that for every dollar spent to make infrastructure more resilient, there is a return of more than 1 dollar with increasing benefits if the scenario includes the benefits of climate change.
It is necessary to give greater appeal to the modernization and maintenance of the works. It has never been true that maintenance, in the sense mentioned above, did not respond to the DNSH principle: the exact opposite is true. It would be difficult to understand why investments aimed at extending the useful life cycle of one/any infrastructure (lifeline infrastructures), moreover without soil consumption, were not considered in terms of resilient investments. It was convenient and it was easier to pursue very glamorous principles, but unachievable in the given time frame, without considering that the money made available, at least in part, we would have had to return.
There is no need for an antagonistic radicalization because we are still able to adjust the shot with great pragmatism and concreteness, let’s do it immediately by involving the Local Authorities, closer to the management of the territory, favoring alongside the necessary large-scale interventions the safety and land maintenance.
2023-07-19 15:22:30
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