Next Generation-EU – Recovery and Resilience Package, this unknown
€209 billion to Italy, but to do what?
The media continue to inform that the Italian Government has not yet delivered to the European Commission the spending list for the use of the € 209 billion allocated to Italy in the Next Generation-EU package approved by the European Council on 21 July 2020 (here the Infographic).
If all goes well, namely if Poland, Hungary and perhaps other Member States will not hinder the distribution of these funds, the pre-financing of the RRF-Mechanism for Recovery and Resilience will be paid in 2021 and should be 10%.
To “catch” the money contained in this package, “Member States shall prepare national recovery and resilience plans setting out the reform and investment agenda of the Member State concerned for the years 2021-23. The plans will be reviewed and adapted as necessary in 2022 to take account of the final allocation of funds for 2023”.
The Italian Government’s game is simple and perverse at the same time.
The Italian Government has already written the Recovery and Resilience Plan in broad strokes, and then he only discusses it with itself?
A date for the presentation of the National Packages to the European Commission is not foreseen. And so, Conte has a good game to say “we will be in time”.
Will Conte send the Recovery and Resilience Plan to the European Commission without starting a public debate with the social partners, the citizens?
Or has he already written it on the basis of Confindustria’s suggestions (Confindustria is the main association representing manufacturing and service companies in Italy) and is that enough for him?
The draft of the shopping list, delivered by Conte to the Presidents of the Italian House and Senate on September 15, 2020 is here: Guidelines for the definition of the Resilience and Resilience Plan #NEXTGENERATIONITALIA that guide the drafting and the choice of the projects that should deserve the aid (grants and loans) of the Next Generation-EU package.
We note that in the Guidelines it is written on page 18: “The Italian Government intends to focus, in the first place, on the HS rail network for passengers and freight with the completion of the TEN-T corridors”.
Based on this choice of the Italian Government, the strong and explicit request of the No TAV Movement is “to delete the Lyon-Turin from the list of the #NEXTGENERATIONITALIA” package”.
We recall that it has been amply demonstrated that the Lyon-Turin project, a Climate Crime is not “green” at all and therefore is not worthy of help within the Next Generation-EU package, see The Lyon-Turin Project is a Climate Crime.
The Principle of Do No Harm
We point out that the European Council, on the basis of the Resolution European Green Deal approved on 15 January 2020 by the European Parliament, approved on 21 July 2020 (see page 15 of the conclusions of the meeting) this principle: “EU expenditure should be consistent with Paris Agreement objectives and the “Do no harm” principle of the European Green Deal”, indicated in paragraphs 100 and 101 of the European Green Deal.
Another reason to exclude the Lyon-Turin project from European funding, but obviously valid for all other investments financed by the European Union.
