Without European funds there is a serious risk that construction sites will block, that hundreds of works will never see the light of day or, in the worst case, that they will remain unfinished, concrete skeletons in the already tormented suburbs of Italy. The alarm was sounded by the local authorities, the Regions and the Municipalities who, more than anyone else, rely on the funds of the Pnrr to carry out projects and activities that are unlikely to be implemented. The reassurances of Minister Raffaele Fitto after the 16 billion definancing, between urban regeneration plans and projects, did not convince the governors, both of the majority and of the opposition, who signed a very articulated document at the Conference raising precise critical points and perplexities.
Even if from the Lombardy Region they let it be known that any definancing at the moment would not affect the resources that will arrive directly in Lombardy and for which the Region is the implementing body. The same goes for the Municipality of Milan, given that there are currently no projects at risk. The Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto, for his part, assured that “there will be no loss of resources to be allocated to hydrogeological instability interventions, which continue their full implementation, without interruption, at the within the original funding programs”. President Massimiliano Fedriga relies on a note to try to tone it down by confirming that the Regions are “ready to collaborate”, but the text of the document is much clearer. The synthesis of the 27 pages that compose it is the request to guarantee alternative funding to the Pnrr and, above all, to involve more the Regions which – we read – “play a fundamental role for the implementation and for the necessary synergies to be activated on the territories for maximize its effectiveness”.
Exactly one week after the control room that decided on the definancing, therefore, the perplexities of governors and mayors are amplified, who now risk having to give up on projects already banned or in any case scheduled. The mayor of Bari himself, and president of Anci, Antonio Decaro, once again urges the government to guarantee “replacement resources”, otherwise – he says – “we risk blocking the procedures for the construction of public works such as new services, regeneration works and redevelopment, interventions for territorial planning and in contrast to climate change”. In fact, the list of works that are in danger of being lost is very long, from the demolition of the last two Vele di Scampia, to the redevelopment of the Serpentone di Corviale, in Rome.
All projects linked to the 2.5 billion initially envisaged by the Pnrr for integrated urban plans. But just as many are the projects also linked to energy efficiency, the mitigation of hydrogeological risk or the enhancement of community social services and infrastructures. “A further observation – write the Regions – concerns the fact that it is not clear to what extent the proposed reprogramming has an effect in terms of the regulatory obligation to allocate at least 40% of the resources that can be allocated to the Southern Regions and to what extent safeguard clauses and mechanisms in place aimed at guaranteeing this objective through, for example, accompaniment at a territorial level”.
For this reason, the Regions once again reiterate that they are more involved, asking for an “urgent discussion on the document also in order to ensure alignment and coherence also with regional planning and programming”. It is not excluded that a meeting with Minister Fitto will be scheduled in the next few days, who saw a delegation of magistrates from the Court of Auditors to open “a dialogue for the correct implementation of spending programs while avoiding waste of public money”. Perplexities also come from the Parliamentary Budget Office which – in the note on the August situation – expressed “strong uncertainty” about the evolution of the Pnrr, warning of downside risks to the economy and a forecast of GDP at 1% for this ‘year.
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