Dear Draghi, are we sure that the PNRR is all right with inflation and expensive energy?
Pnrr? "You can review what has not been banned, and since almost everything has been banned there is little to review," said Prime Minister Mario Draghi. It's really like this? The italics by Giuseppe Liturri
"You can review what has not been banned, and since almost everything has been banned there is little to review."
With this lapidary sentence, President Mario Draghi dismissed a question on a possible revision of the PNRR on Friday afternoon. Adding that the approach should be more pragmatic than ideological and that “if there are projects that can be replaced with others, I don't think it's a problem”.
Closing with “what has been done has been done, there is no great possibility to be done. You have to look at what there is… ”.
On one point, not a secondary one, we must agree. And it is that of the pragmatic approach, case by case, because the strategic choices have already been made and now the level of intervention is mainly the technical-operational-administrative one.
But it is precisely when we get down to this level that the nodes deriving from wrong strategic choices right upstream or that have proved to be inappropriate following the reversals of the economic policy framework in recent months risk coming to a head.
Admitted and not granted that it is true that “almost everything has been banned”, this does not at all mean that everything is proceeding smoothly until the investment is complete. Bidding a race does not mean exhausting the task. Then it must be awarded to the winner and the latter must perform the work. Two steps that are not at all automatic and obvious, as Draghi has instead suggested.
What if the scarcity of raw materials and their prices make it impossible to award a contract? What if during construction, after the award, it becomes impossible to complete the work?
Up to now it has been all too easy to "produce paper" and the Draghi government must be acknowledged for having succeeded very well. But now comes the difficult part of opening the construction sites and carrying out the works and it would be advisable not to wait months or years to acknowledge that you have already decided wrong investments or have turned out to be wrong today in light of the changed macroeconomic framework.
These are all necessary reflections from today.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/caro-draghi-siamo-sicuri-che-il-pnrr-sia-tutto-ok-con-inflazione-e-caro-energia/ on Sun, 18 Sep 2022 06:17:14 +0000.