From the accusations against the government to the short memory on the 2020 projects: why opposition leaders cannot ignore the blame for the semi-failure of the Pnrr.
There has been a lot of discussion in recent days Pnrr. Partly because the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, launched to restart Italy after the pandemic, expires this year. And a little because those 194 billion obtained from Europe, largely borrowed and therefore to be repaid, did not lead to the growth that it would have been right to expect from such an injection of money. The left accuses the government of having missed a great opportunity and of not even knowing how to invest the money received. Giuseppe Contewho as prime minister led the negotiations with Brussels to obtain the money, adds that without European funds the GDP Italian would have decreased instead of growing.
The opposition is partly right, because the Pnrr it’s a half-failure. However, both the Democratic Party and the 5 Stars forget a fundamental aspect, namely that the reforms and investments of the Plan were set by the Giallorossi executive in 2020-2021. The five-star leader was there at Palazzo Chigi when the interventions were being planned and, after the People’s Advocate, he came Mario Draghiwho was responsible for continuing the choice of projects to finance.
The legacy of projects between micro-interventions and historical delays
I remember a couple of covers of Panorama dedicated to the topic: the first concerned the delays with which the plan was proceeding, the second listed the authorized interventions. The one that signaled the slowness with which the choice of investments was progressing dates back to the beginning of December five years ago and, already at that time, it was understood that not everything would be achieved and, therefore, a lot of money would remain suspended in the void. The cover dedicated to the projects instead listed a number of bizarre works, which certainly didn’t seem like the best choice for growing the project. GDP.
I remember a few just to refresh your memory: the hill of well-being, in Riccia, province of Campobasso; the VIP Center of Pietramontecorvino, Foggia; the padel fields of Vigo di Cadore, Belluno; the bowling alley of Cortona, Arezzo. Furthermore, the works that were supposed to relaunch Italy included an infinite number of cemeteries: a nice way to guarantee the future of a country. Really Count and companions thought that it would be possible to grow the GDP multiplying the graves? Did they believe that, to restart the economy, it was enough to reactivate the ski lifts of the Bocca di Selva ski complex in San Potito Sannitico, in the province of Caserta? For the record, the aforementioned ski lift involved an investment of 1.6 million eurosmoney that was added to that for a softball field in Orgosolo, in the province of Nuoro.
The mirage of growth and the crux of productivity
Today we discover that European funds have not served to increase the turnover of the Italian company? But what is there to discover? It was all already written. It was enough to scroll through the list of interventions to understand that they would serve no purpose other than to give prestige to some local administration in search of a bit of consensus. Actually someone to Palazzo Chigiwhen the Giallorossi government was there, but also when this was replaced by that of national unity led by the former president of ECBdid you think that by redoing the parking lots the productivity of the country would increase?
Those billions did not serve to support businesses, improve infrastructure, make public administration more efficient or make the courts proceed quickly. All that money, or at least a large part of it, was literally thrown into works which, if they were not useless, were clientelistic and therefore the Pnrr it turned out to be a great waste of resources. Who to thank for all this? Of course, the current government could have monitored better, but many projects had already started. Certainly, those who have no right to point the finger and criticize the failure of the plan are the opposition leaders, who – directly or indirectly – bear the responsibility for the wrong choices and the great waste. Despite what we have been led to believe, the Pnrr it wasn’t free, but today we discover that not only was it not a gift, but that we even paid for what we didn’t need. Well, you know who to thank.
