In the days in which the protest of farmers, including Italians, against the EU explodes, evidence arrives that Italy was the first country in Europe for financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB). In 2023, 12.22 billion euros were disbursed for economic recovery and ecological transition, with an increase of 22% on an annual basis. In practice, half a budget law. Specifically, the 89 operations will contribute “to activating investments of approximately almost 38 billion euros in the real economy”. And future support for a rapid implementation of the European Green Deal is confirmed. Numbers which, combined with the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr), can help achieve the country’s economic sustainability.
In Brussels, in Place du Luxembourg, the farmers’ fermentations have created an imbalance. Yet, upon closer inspection, the Europe that has been so denigrated in recent weeks has contributed to providing marked support for the country’s economic development and to providing support for Italian energy security, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The figures presented in Rome by the EIB show constant commitment. Is increasing. Over 12 billion euros which in 2023 were used to support the country in a non-trivial challenge. In detail, explains the institution led by the Spanish Nadia Calviño, «the EIB Group’s investments in favor of environmental sustainability and energy security in Italy have reached the record volume of 7.02 billion euros, or 57% of the total activity in the country (increase of almost 1.5 billion compared to the volumes recorded in 2022)”. Of these 7 billion euros, 2.98 billion “were dedicated to supporting the objectives of REPowerEU, such as energy saving, clean energy production, and the diversification of our energy supply”. Perhaps the most significant example is the signing of financing contracts with Terna for a total of 900 million euros, in addition to the 500 million allocated in 2022, for the construction of the Tyrrhenian Link, the double submarine cable that will connect Sicily with Sardinia and the Italian peninsula.
There is not only the green challenge, however. Promoting cohesion in the European Union, the EIB points out, “is fundamental to reducing economic and social gaps between territories and ensuring that each region can reach its full potential”. It is to support this transversal objective that the EIB “has allocated 38% of its investments in Italy in 2023, or 4.6 billion euros, to the economic development of Southern Italy”. Including the 2.1 billion euros invested in total for the construction of the Palermo-Catania railway line.
Then there are small and medium-sized businesses, the connective tissue of Italy. Thanks to collaboration with the country’s main public and commercial banks, the Luxembourg-based bank «financed the liquidity and working capital needs of SMEs with 2.98 billion euros, supporting over 58,000 companies employing more than one million of people”. Among the companies, there are Iveco and Amplifon. The first to “promote the electrification, efficiency and safety of the transport sector through investments in Research, Development and Innovation”. The second «to further accelerate the company’s innovation and digitalization path. At the same time, the EIB “has almost doubled (+98%) its financing for the innovation and digitalisation of businesses in Italy compared to 2022, reaching a total volume of 2.30 billion euros”. Values to which those of the European Investment Fund (EIF) are added. In 2023, the EIF invested approximately 9% of its total assets in Italy, or 1.35 billion euros (+48% compared to 2022), of which 804 million in guarantees and 554 million in equity.
In a complicated year like 2023, with the start of a new war in the Middle East, the EIB has pulled back. This was highlighted by Gelsomina Vigliotti, EIB vice-president and EIF president. «We have consolidated our role as the climate bank of Italy and the European Union. Financing dedicated to environmental sustainability and energy security in the country exceeded the record levels of 2022 by almost 1.5 billion euros, reaching 7 billion euros.” This, says Vigliotti, «is proof that the Italian economy has been able to create successful projects and initiatives, capable of catalyzing European funds and using them as investment multipliers. I am pleased to confirm that once again in 2023, one euro out of six disbursed by the EIB Group in Europe has arrived in Italy.” Figures which, de facto, are worth almost half of the budget.