“Time is the thing that abounds most in Italy, given the waste that is made of it“wrote, ironically, Giuseppe Prezzolini many years ago. One of the flaws of the beautiful country is the inaction, the difficulty of initiating the changes and reforms that have been talked about for decades but which, in a Gattopardesque way, are never done and, even if they are approved, then they are not implemented There are countless opportunities lost by Italy due to slowness, sometimes inexplicable, even in the innovation sector where speed is an even more decisive factor for the success of public policies.
Just think about what is happening with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain. Articles, conferences and institutional interventions are multiplying in which these issues are described as central and priority for the development and future of our country. Yet, the facts show that Italy is struggling to have a strategic plan and to pursue it. In short, we know what we have to work on, but when we have to trace a path or implement the planned actions, we freeze. Apparently inexplicably.
This is what happened with the national strategy on artificial intelligence. In recent weeks, the European Commission and the OECD have published a document in which they describe the strategies of the various European countries in the field of artificial intelligence, one of the sectors they rely on to build the future of the Old Continent. Well, of the 28 countries analyzed in the report, some have already adopted strategic documents several years ago (such as Finland in 2017, Germany and France in 2018), while only seven countries have not yet adopted their own strategy. Among these is Italy, together with Romania, Greece, Ireland, Croatia, Belgium and Austria.
Yet work on defining a national strategy began several years ago. In 2018, the Ministry for Economic Development set up a group of experts for this purpose (all with free assignments, it should be emphasized). The group of experts developed its own proposals on the basis of which a strategic document submitted for public consultation was defined. The consultation took place – in a hurry and in the height of summer – between 19 August and 13 September 2019. But another year has passed to have a subsequent update. It is July 2, 2020 when the experts’ document is published, which takes into account the comments received during the consultation. Process closed? Not yet, the national strategy is put into consultation again from 1 to 31 October 2020. Since then, its traces have been lost. In the report published by the Commission and the OECD it is written that Italy should have published the strategy by June 2021, but – at the moment (5 July) – the definitive strategy has not yet been published three years after its launch. some jobs.
In this same period, other countries (such as Germany) have adopted and started to implement their strategy, updating it on the basis of technological developments and the context.
The Italian delay is certainly a problem whose causes are intuitive: regardless of the proclamations, the issue has not so far been really a priority for decision-makers. Of the two, one: either the urgency of the issue has not been understood or – worse – one is not equipped to govern these complex and decisive phenomena (despite the many existing professionals and the many experts).
Among other things, one wonders whether – at this point – that document is still useful and current. Or, even before being adopted, will it have to be updated in consideration of the many innovations that have occurred in the meantime (such as the proposed EU regulation on artificial intelligence published on April 21st)?
The national strategy is not an isolated case but, on the contrary, is an example of what happens in the world of Italian innovation. A similar fate has happened, for example, to the Italian law on blockchain.
Also in 2018, with a standard introduced in “Simplifications decree 2019“(DL n. 135/2018) Italy was one of the first countries to adopt a discipline of technologies based on distributed registers (blockchain precisely) and the related phenomenon of smart contract. The standard defines a regulation of the legal effects relating to the use of these innovative tools in order to encourage their use by private and public administrations.
The Agency for Digital Italy, within three months of the entry into force of the conversion law (and therefore by May 14, 2019), should have adopted the guidelines that condition the operation of the innovative regulatory provisions. Yet, more than two years after that date, the rules have not yet been adopted and the reasons for this delay are not known. Was the legislator too optimistic to think that it only took 90 days to write and publish them? Likely. Or has it been realized that the norm that provides for them must be revised? In two years, however, there would have been an opportunity to change it.
We certainly do not need “manifest rules” that remain on paper and whose implementation measures remain in the drawer, delaying the difficult moment of implementation (in which, among other things, we are not traditionally very strong).
Digital technologies are a challenge that jurists and legislators must meet by creating a system of rules as innovative as the phenomenon they must regulate. Therefore, we cannot afford to follow rites and times that perhaps went well in a world that no longer exists, but which are completely inadequate to the context in which we live and work.
Among other things, these delays which are even more worrying when one thinks of the commitments that await Italy, such as those contained in the Recovery Plan. President Draghi shared a shared warning that implementation is the real challenge of the PNRR (the National Recovery and Resilience Plan). A very difficult challenge for a country, ours, which in three years fails to adopt a strategy on artificial intelligence or in two years the technical rules on blockchain.
To implement the PNRR you need to know what to do and do it quickly, also from a regulatory point of view. Why not, we have no more time to waste.
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