In the forecasts formulated by the government with the Update to the Def, a net acceleration next year should fill the gaps recorded so far in the roadmap of actual investment expenditure of the NRP. At the end of 2022 the counter will stop at 20.5 billion, 13.2 less than the calendar written in April in the Def and 20.9 less than the initial hypotheses. Next year, however, spending should soar to 40.9 billion, 25.9 more than the 15 totaled in 2022.
So far the tables of the Nadef. But in the practice of many administrations, more than a fear of the concrete possibility of really respecting the stages written in the programs begins to emerge.
Tight deadlines for investment in education
Time passes mercilessly, for example, for investments in the “education” strand. The richest dish concerns nurseries and preschools, and with 4.7 billion it finances 2,190 interventions (333 nursery schools and 1,857 between nursery schools and childcare centers) in about 2 thousand municipalities. There are two dates that worry the directors: the executive planning should be completed by 31 December, and by 31 March the deadline for the award of the works, which must be started by 30 June, expires. On a formal level, only these last terms are relevant for the community time schedule: but due to an obvious domino effect, without respecting the first, the others also become unattainable. And the former is at risk.
The crux of the registration of the decree
The problem arises from the fact that the Ministry of Education, after the publication of the rankings of financial interventions published on August 16 after a march in forced stages, is still awaiting the registration of the decree. And without this last stamp it does not open the system for signing concession agreements, while many municipalities have received requests and comments on the documentation presented. The deadlock is not overcome even with the simplification rules which among other things allow the Municipalities to commit the expenses immediately after the first central allocation. But as October is now late, in the administrations’ calculations not even an immediate opening of the platform for concession agreements would secure the end-of-year deadline.
A way to accelerate by trying to make up for lost time can pass through the mechanism of the framework agreements with Invitalia just relaunched by the Aiuti-ter decree, which shows to work for example on the integrated urban plans of metropolitan cities (on Tuesday 4 calls were launched for over 1.8 billion) and on other areas concerning local authorities.