MILANO – The government’s tightening on preventive control of the Court of Auditors on the projects of Pnrr, introduced with an amendment to the PA decree, is already being observed by Brussels. The European Commission has “an agreement” with Italy on the “need to have effective audit control” on the implementation of the Pnrr and “it is up to the Italian authorities to ensure that these bodies function” adequately, said the Commission’s chief spokesman European, Eric Mamer, responding during the briefing with the press to a question regarding the intervention of the executive. For the spokeswoman for the Economy Veerle Nuyts “this is a draft law” and “as a general rule we do not comment on draft legislation”. However, the Pnrr “needs an adequate control framework”, because “national control systems are a tool for the protection of the EU’s interests”, he concluded.
Pnrr, the Court of Auditors: “The tax shield is against EU rules, the legislator decides on the controls”
by Giuseppe Colombo, Liana Milella
Cassese: “The government’s intervention is right”
Sabino Cassese, on the other hand, took sides in defense of the government’s intervention. “The government did very well to limit the preventive control of the Court of Auditors,” said the president emeritus of the Constitutional Court, during a meeting at the Turin Economy Festival. “There are aspects of merit on the controls and of method on the way in which this story took place which prove the government completely right and demonstrate that the large state corporations should rethink the way they act towards the state of which they are the representatives,” Cassese explained.
Palazzo Chigi’s reply: “Instrumental controversies. Correct implementation of the law on the Court of Auditors”
In a long explanatory note, Palazzo Chigi responded to the remarks of one of the spokesmen of the European Commission which would fuel “instrumental political controversies that do not correspond to reality”. In particular, argues the government, “the rules proposed by the Government, approved yesterday by the Parliamentary Commission in the Pa dl, do not change what has already been agreed between the European Commission and the Italian Government, the rules under discussion do not intervene on the provisions of dl 77 of May 2021”. Thus the note replies in Brussels on the discipline of the Court’s controls, on the need for controls, on the profile of the uninformed pre-judgment and on the non-existent modifications, with observations on the merits and on the method along 8 points.