The political control room for the implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan could meet as early as this week for the first time – or at least not much later. Insiders call it Pnrr, almost everyone else calls it Recovery. Yet in the national conversation that project of 191.5 billion of European funds and 528 preconditions almost disappeared, as if the big deal was negotiating the agreement in Brussels and getting the half thousand pages of the initial project approved. Almost that stewardship will follow, the executive part, is destined to run its course almost automatically. Without too much effort or worry.
The deadlines of 2021
That in these days the first meeting of the political control room is being prepared – led by the premier Mario Draghi, with the Minister of Economy Daniele Franco, those of the ecological transition and technological innovation Roberto Cingolani e Vittorio Colao and perhaps others – proves that of course not so. It cannot be, given the density of the agenda. Not only from today to 2026, also from today to the end of the year. To be able to present the first report and therefore receive the substantial payments for the first part of 2022, in just over three months Italy still has to meet 42 of the 51 conditions set for this year. a wide range of measures, largely regulatory, which includes delicate parliamentary passages on the delegated law for the reform of justice; a controversial review of active labor policies; an important framework law on disabilities and a university reform. Topics on which, outside the government rooms, almost no one in the country is questioning. In addition, there will be the proxy law on taxation that Palazzo Chigi hopes to approve this week (perhaps by diluting or postponing the controversial part of the upward revision of the cadastral valuations) and the launch in the Council of Ministers of the annual competition law, in this case after the second round of the October administrative elections.
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The race of 100 days
The next few months will be non-stop. Giorgio Musso of the Observatory on Italian Public Accounts, author of the best summary of the agenda for the coming months, estimates that the 42 conditions to be presented in Brussels within one hundred days are almost double the average number per quarter foreseen by the Recovery from 2022 onwards. Only some of the 42 are simple or bureaucratic measures. Among other things, it should be noted that in recent months Brussels has recalled a detail in the past, also unnoticed in Italy: tackling a reform on a certain issue may not be enough, if some of the relevant elements agreed with the EU Commission are missing from the provision. Brussels could avoid endorsing the semester reporting, preventing the subsequent request for funds. Therefore, the re-examination would take place only after another six months, with the risk of generating substantial delays. Therefore, the organization of work in the government will count and it will be crucial to prevent conflicts of competences between the many coordination centers of the plan.
La governance
On paper, the risk of friction exists. The Simplifications Office is in the Public Function Department, which has to deal with this matter for all the projects of the NRP and for six hundred procedures defined as “complex”. A new, parallel Unit for the rationalization and improvement of regulation was formed at the Department for Legal and Legislative Affairs of the Presidency of the Council, again for the purposes of the NRP. Two different coordination structures coexist at the Ministry of Economy, which is the leader of the whole project and the owner of relations with Brussels. There is a central office entrusted to Carmine Di Nuzzo, who has a pivotal role and will focus in particular on the reporting of funds. For there is also a mission unit formed during the previous government and never dissolved, which should take care of the indicators related to Recovery. Finally, there is the technical secretary of the control room at Palazzo Chigi, with functions of direction, coordination and impulse, and of course the economic policy department of the presidency. In short, the protagonists of this complex governance will have to devote great care to avoiding overlaps.
Parliament without stopping
Also because the agenda will be non-stop. For the parliament it will be so for now especially on the justice front, because the related reform laws are not closed. On the criminal there was the approval of the Chamber, but not yet of the Senate, while on the civil both classrooms must give their green light – with possible battles in the commission – in view of the legislative and implementation decrees to define the specific content of the reform by the end of 2022 and the middle of 2023 respectively (overlapping with the campaign for the general elections). It also remains to understand an important point of the reform of active policies expected by the end of the year, with a budget of five billion euros: the new Employability Guarantee for workers (Gol) only provides for new hires in employment centers or a rethinking of bottom of this galaxy of offices that hasn’t worked in recent years?
The university reform
A review of the graduation classes, qualifying degrees and doctorates is expected for the university. Finally, the litmus test will come for the courts and the public administration. Today the call for the first 500 graduates who should work on the projects of the NRP expires. In a week, the one for the three-year hiring of the first batch of eight thousand collaborators in the Office of the trial: for them there is the (theoretical) risk of termination of the employment contract, if Italy in the coming years does not achieve the objectives of shortening the times of justice and Brussels stopped the funds. The level of adherence to the calls will be a first signal to understand if the Recovery takes off.
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