«It is an extraordinary historical moment, despite the great uncertainties that surround us. Italy can play great ». Corrado Passera tries to clear the field of the underlying pessimism of Italians towards their country – even if European football and Olympics have injected unexpected doses of national pride – especially in this phase of changes in European leadership: “Italy can have a a decisive role again, also due to the presence of Mario Draghi at the head of the government. The EU faces formidable challenges: first of all that of guaranteeing well-being, sustainability and rights as, up to now, no other socio-economic system has managed to do. We must find even more advanced balances ». Passera – after his experience as Minister of Economic Development and a “political” interlude – in 2018 he returned as a banker, he founded and led illimity, a listed “new paradigm bank” with a capitalization of almost 900 million. And now he looks at the relaunch of the country, in the post-Covid period with the eyes of an entrepreneur who has had public roles.
“The pandemic has accelerated all processes.” Redevelop the entire public expenditure
«The pandemic has accelerated all the processes that have already been underway for some time. The innovation and changes that can derive from new technologies are only at the beginning ». The driving force on which attention is focused is the PNRR – in recent days the first EU check for 25 billion was issued – it is an instrument of 235 billion in five years: “The directions chosen are the right ones, starting with concentration on digital and energy transition, but I believe it must be the beginning of a process that involves all 850 billion of annual public spending. It is true that most of it is already destined, but a process of redefining priorities must be started, and more resources must be allocated to prepare for change ». In essence, therefore, “rethinking the country’s multi-year plan – a sort of zero-based budget, one would say in corporate jargon – to better orient both public and private resources to seize new opportunities and face new risks”, questioning some parameters given for acquired: “More investments and fewer bonuses. More apprenticeships and less guaranteed income, except in moments of absolute emergency ”.
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Get out of the “bonus logic”, become a pole of attraction for investments from abroad
They are declarations of intent that are often heard, then the logic of politics prevails, and the populist measures pass … «If you push things happen. Let’s talk about concrete things ». Let’s talk about. «The tax authorities must structurally reward companies that invest in innovation, that hire, that join forces, that strengthen their assets. All sectors can ride innovation and in many of them Italy is already a leader: from fine mechanics to machine tools and robotics, from new medicine to biotechnology and genomics, from food to new agriculture. Let us always remember that the most creative and high-service content such as tourism are also those most defensible from international competition. Virtuous companies that invest, hire and strengthen should be able to structurally enjoy IRES close to zero, thus creating an attractive environment also for foreign investments. The state would not lose revenue, on the contrary. Other than a bonus! “
European “federal” projects are needed to compete with the giants of the US and China
However, it is difficult to move alone, in the face of multinational giants, often this highly talented innovation risks being confined to some small niche factory… «The question is in fact European. We are a global power that does not behave as such. There is a dimension of investments, which only the EU system can field with research projects and long-term contracts, to create global champions. I am thinking of the Airbus model, which must be replicated, for example in the field of semiconductors aiming at STM which is already an Italian-French joint venture ». Well, but then when you try to create a transactional group like Fincantieri and the French former Stx, the antitrust stops everything: “Competition is good, but in the light of this case too it is clear that even the competition rules must adapt to new playing field. This is also why European industrial and financial companies are almost never in the rankings and, especially in the technological field, none of the new giants are European ”. In short, (new) rules and (European) resources? “We need large federal investments, that is, selected, managed and financed at European level. The EU budget is just over 1% of GDP and pales in front of the resources deployed by the United States and China. We are losing precious years, and we risk becoming an object of conquest ”.
Now the digital euro. And even in the banks “everything is changing”
For Passera, a decisive step is the adoption of the digital euro (Fabio Panetta at the ECB is working on this project, ed), “which has nothing to do with crypto-currencies that are not and will never be current currencies legal. We only think that China will launch the digital renmimbi on the occasion of next year’s Winter Olympics: we must enter into the order of ideas that the great powers will compete with each other and will expand their areas of influence also through their digital currencies and the Euro is late”. And here we come to the banks, which must face post-Covid in a profoundly changed world. «Everything is changing in the bank, especially in terms of new technologies and for this reason we have created illimity from scratch. The time and costs for carrying out traditional activities can be reduced by as much as 95%, but efficiency is not the most important aspect. Risk management itself changes. Evaluating the bankability of an SME was often impossible on the basis of financial statements: data analytics based on PSD2 and electronic invoicing bring back many companies that were previously excluded from credit. Just a few years ago it would not have been imaginable to replace real guarantees with data and soon we will be able to talk about programmable assets ».