BRUSSELS. Italy’s national recovery plan is not going well. It is not sufficiently “green” and risks betraying the expectations and commitments linked to the recovery fund. The attack comes from the Greens group in the European Parliament, after an examination of the strategies already presented in Brussels and on which the European Commission will have to dissolve the reserve in the coming days to say whether the measures endorsed by the EU chancellery are worthy of funding through the special anti-crisis mechanism. The MEPs of the Greens are addressing the Community executive, asking for a de facto stop to the granting of guarantees and loans.
The analysis of parliamentary formation is not limited to Italy. There are more Member States in the crosshairs, but explicit references to Mario Draghi’s government are not lacking. According to the assessments of the European Greens in the papers sent by Rome there would be “a lack of details and regulatory requirements for building renovations in Italy”. Again, the “probable confusion of improvements to the district heating distribution network” in the Peninsula is denounced. According to the fifth parliamentary force in Brussels and Strasbourg, “there is no guarantee that the investment to modernize the cogeneration infrastructure meets the criterion advanced pilot system or leads to a lower temperature regime ‘, and thus’ cannot be labeled as 100% climate relevant’.
The European Recovery Mechanism invites Member States to concentrate a large part of their investments in the digital and sustainable transition. As for this second pillar, Italy would therefore be cheating, according to the European Greens. That doesn’t end there.
The Draghi government’s strategy also disputes the initiative for the renewal of the fleet of buses and firefighters’ vehicles with new generation low-emission vehicles. Italy is committed to purchasing over 3,000 low-emission, electric or hydrogen vehicles. It is on the second category that we are perplexed. Specifically, it is disputed that “renewable hydrogen is unlikely” to reach financial maturity by 2026, and therefore a transition to hydrogen-powered vehicles “would require fossil-based hydrogen, thus increasing CO2 emissions compared to a transition net towards electric buses “.
The unsustainable list of Italy drawn up by the Greens includes other measures. It is recalled that financial support to renewable energy communities and renewable self-consumers should not be discriminatory, pursuant to Directive 2018/2001 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources. In the Italian case, however, there are measures that seem to “limit” eligibility on the basis of geographical criteria such as the number of inhabitants of the municipality of residence. A way of operating contrary to the common rules in force.
Again, the community executive warns that a surcharge for support for the photovoltaic system is “very likely”. Based on the investment objective, the investment assumes a cost of 3500 euros / kWh, “six times higher than the cost of photovoltaics”.
It is not at the top of the evaluation of the Greens, but the Ilva of Taranto is still subject to criticism. Specifically, the intention to build new blast furnaces and electric furnaces in addition to the maintenance of two coal-fired blast furnaces is contested. “To date, the steel plant lacks an environmental impact assessment and a health impact assessment, as required by Directive 2014/52″, he argues.
In summary, there are “serious doubts about the conformity of many measures” presented, and the Greens are calling for the rejection of the Draghi government’s plan. These interventions “because they contain or imply a relaxation of environmental standards, must be rejected”. The floor to the Commission. At stake are 68.9 billion EU non-repayable contributions.