Italy formally asks Brussels to review its recovery plan

Ten days after Brussels gave its approval to the payment of the third tranche of its recovery plan, the Government of Giorgia Meloni has formally presented a request to the European Commission on Monday to review said program. Originally prepared by the previous Executive of Mario Draghi, the national recovery and resilience plan has made Italy the main recipient of funds from the European recovery plans to get out of the crisis caused by covid-19, with a total of 191,000 million euros in credits and subsidies to modernize and make the Italian economy greener, in exchange for a series of reforms.

Rome has indicated, according to the European Executive, its intention to add to its national plan a chapter to obtain funds through REpowerEU, the program launched after the Russian invasion of Ukraine a year ago to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, especially Russian , and help Member States to “promote zero-carbon energy sources and energy resilience”.

The REpowerEU funds to which Rome can have access after submitting this application —still pending its review in Brussels— amount to 2,760 million euros. The Italian Government has proposed, according to the Commission, various reforms in the field of renewable energy development, boosting ecological skills in the public and private sectors, fighting against subsidies that are harmful to the environment or improving the production of biomethane. Likewise, Rome proposes investments to improve energy networks, energy efficiency and strategic supply chains.

Beyond the new chapter to get out of dependence on fossil fuels, Rome proposes to Brussels to review 144 “investments and reforms” related to the six thematic areas —or “missions”— of its national recovery plan (digitization and competitiveness, ecological transition , sustainable mobility, education, inclusion and cohesion and health).

The modification of its national plan is due, Brussels quotes Rome, to the need to take into account the negative impact, at a global level, of elements such as “high inflation and restrictions in supply chains”. Since he came to power last year, Meloni has tried to change the plan designed by Draghi, claiming that circumstances have changed and that it was not his own program. Until now, the Commission replied that you can change nuances, but not make fundamental reforms.

However, the team led by the president of the European Executive, Ursula von der Leyen, has tried in recent times to avoid an open confrontation with Rome like the one it has with the governments of Poland or Hungary, which the Commission has detained thousands of million euros for violation of community regulations. In fact, at the end of July, Brussels gave its approval to the disbursement of a third tranche of 18,500 million euros from the EU anti-crisis fund, which put an end to almost eight months of a struggle between Rome and Brussels, which had been frozen. the funds considering that Italy still lacked a milestone to be met, a fact for which some 500 million euros have been withheld until the next tranche, the fourth. In the middle of last month, Von der Leyen also traveled with Meloni and the outgoing Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, to Tunisia to sign a controversial principle of migration agreement that Rome demanded, which has made a strong hand in immigration matters. , especially to stop the arrival of small boats, one of their workhorses.

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As indicated by the European Commission this Monday, it must now carry out an evaluation of whether the plan presented by Italy continues to meet the criteria established in the regulation of the recovery plan. If said evaluation is positive, it will make a proposal to modify the execution of the plan, which must be endorsed by the Council of the EU.

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