The “SUD – Projects to restart” listening initiative was launched by Minister Mara Carfagna in view of the definitive elaboration of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which will be presented to the EU by 30 April, and the Partnership Agreement of Italy 2021-2027, whose final draft is scheduled for July 2021.
The objective of the Minister for the South and Territorial Cohesion is to initiate a process of comparison between institutions, social partners, experts and different skills in sharing objectives, purposes, priorities and methods to be followed for the planning and implementation of interventions in the South of Italy. Italy through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
The work, structured in three sessions, took place on 23 and 24 March 2021, by videoconference broadcast on the website of the Minister for the South and Territorial Cohesion and on the channels of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.
The first session, dedicated to the interventions of the institutional representatives, opened with the intervention of the President of the Council of Ministers Mario Draghi, which was followed by interventions by the representatives of the Bank of Italy, Istat, the State General Accounting Office , the Agency for Cohesion, the Representation in Italy of the European Commission, the Directorate General for Regional Policy of the European Commission and the Presidents of the Regions of Southern Italy.
In the second session, dedicated to the representatives of the Municipalities, the mayors of the metropolitan cities took part and eight working groups were set up with the participation of representatives of foundations, associations, schools and universities, social partners, companies and health companies.
The Working Tables dealt with delicate issues such as: “The southern question today”, “University for business and administration”, “Work and sociality”, “Long and short-range mobility”, “Environmental transition”, ” The school is a tool to remove obstacles “,” Digital innovation “,” Health, strategic supply chain “.
In the third session of 24 March, the coordinators of the eight thematic tables, followed by the interventions of F. Barca, C. De Vincenti, C. Bastioli, L. Reichlin and G. Provenzano and the contribution of Bruno Tabacci, undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council.
In conclusion, Minister Mara Carfagna drew up an assessment of the event, leaving the closing of the works to the Minister of Economy and Finance Daniele Franco.
At the start of the works, Carfagna invited the participants “to be concrete, pragmatic, effective” in an extraordinarily important moment that can change the destiny not only of the South of Italy, but of the entire country, reassuring those present that “Listening to the South has just begun” and with it “the renewal season for the South must begin”.
President Draghi, announcing the will of the Government to “conduct a widespread listening campaign” then underlined that “Next Generation EU foresees 191.5 billion for Italy to be spent by 2026 … to restart the convergence process between the South and the Center-North which has been at a standstill for decades… from the beginning of the 1970s to today it has greatly deteriorated. The product per person in the South went from 65% in the Center and North to 55%. In recent years, there has been a sharp decline in public investment, which obviously hit the South along with the rest of the country. Between 2008 and 2018, public spending on investments in the South in fact more than halved and went from 21 to just over 10 billion “.
Draghi also underlined the great opportunity to increase spending on physical and digital infrastructures and sustainable energy sources, specifying that the financial resources of other European programs and cohesion funds must also be added to the resources of Next Generation EU, for another 96 billion for the South in the coming years.
He also expressed concern that these resources could not necessarily determine the restart of the South due to the two variables linked to the use of European funds and the ability to complete public works. It is no coincidence, Draghi specified, “Against the 47.3 billion euros programmed in the Fund for Development and Cohesion from 2014 to 2020, just over 3 billion had been spent at the end of last year, 6.7 %. In 2017, 647 public works had been started but not completed in Italy. In more than two thirds of cases, it was not even half of it. 70% of these unfinished works were located in the South, for a value of 2 billion ”. Therefore, the Government’s priority objective is “To become able to spend these funds, and to do it well, … We want to stop the widening of the gap and direct these funds in particular towards women and young people” and all this through “A choice that wants to enhance the participation”.
After the intervention of President Draghi, the presidents of the regions of Southern Italy have focused on many problems such as the awareness that in the South the additional funds have become funds to replace ordinary expenditure (De Luca), the need for adequate regulatory reviews that allow to give more certainty for the realization of the works (Emiliano), to deal with territorial cohesion by overcoming the programming difficulties that arise between inland and flat and coastal areas and to strengthen the ports in function of an adequate European platform (Marsilio), the permanent structural disadvantages in terms of transport with particular regard to the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, to give speed to administrative action by limiting neocentralism (Solinas), to have resources and fast procedures to carry out public works through a strong bureaucracy (Musumeci).
In the final considerations, Carfagna declared the will to lay the foundations for “a South of rights, development and work”, as well as stop with the criterion of historical expenditure, which penalizes the territories in need of bridging the gaps on essential rights such as, for example, nursery schools and social policies.
In the South, the Minister recalled, together with our colleague Brunetta we have already thought of an extraordinary plan of 2,800 hires by the summer, but unprecedented resources will also be allocated: “about half of the investments in infrastructures envisaged in the PNRR, in addition to 250 million for the fight against educational poverty, 300 million for the conversion of assets confiscated from the mafias, 900 million to strengthen the social and material infrastructures of inland areas (part of an overall plan of 2 billion), 600 million for infrastructures in the SEZ, 350 million for new innovation ecosystems. To these are added the 8 billion reserved for the South in the ReactEU plan, over 80 billion between European cohesion funds and co-financing, 80% of the National Development and Cohesion Fund ”.
But this amount of resources, the minister warned, is not sufficient to determine greater territorial cohesion, without an effective planning capacity and overcoming the slowness of the bureaucratic machine and the streamlining of procedures, it will be difficult to complete the works on schedule and, therefore “it requires a joint commitment at all institutional levels and businesses to work together in view of the final goal”.
Minister Franco, at the end of the work, referring to Draghi strongly posed the need to reduce the territorial gaps in Italy, as well as to activate and strengthen all administrative capacities at all levels (State, common regions). He underlined the positivity of the multisectoral approach of the PNRR, clarifying, however, that the delay in the South cannot be overcome by the PNRR alone, but requires a more comprehensive and longer-lasting strategy. For the Minister, the PNRR constitutes a great opportunity, but a greater and greater effort is needed over time to give adequate responses to overcoming the country’s territorial gaps.
Extremely significant, during the course of the works, the intervention of Maestro Riccardo Muti who, from the prestigious seat of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, defined by him as “one of the most beautiful theaters in the world“, presented himself as a “son of the South”, launched an appeal for theaters, musicians, dancers, choristers, bands, artists and technicians of the Italian musical tradition, known and much appreciated in the world, recommending with Carfagna so that “Words are not carried away by the wind but are reality. “
* Architect, PHD Urban and territorial planning and Project manager of inter-territorial and transnational programs.