Pnrr, the news on procurement
What does the legislative decree of early March provide on the subject of advances on expenses for Pnrr procurements. The speech by Alfonso Polillo, lawyer expert in administrative law
The publication in the Official Journal of the decree-law of 2 March 2024, n. dates back to a few days ago. 19, containing " Further urgent provisions for the implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan ( PNRR ) ".
The Decree is part of the broader process of reviewing the PNRR, which began with the installation of the Meloni Government, and has the declared objective ( rectius : hoped for) of ensuring the implementation of this Plan by 2026.
Already in December 2022 and then in May last year, I had addressed – in alarmist terms – the issue of the "short circuit" that had been created on the advance due to the contractor, which according to the procurement code (also applicable to interventions financed with the PNRR) is equal to at least 20% of the contractual amount, while for the PNRR funds it is equal to "only" 10% of the allocated resources.
The devastating consequence for the implementing entities was a major problem of financial provision, which was inevitably passed on to the latter.
The Government, with Circular no. 19 signed by the State Accountant General on 27 April 2023, had tried to remedy this distortion by opening up the possibility of obtaining higher advances, up to 30% of the amount of the resources assigned. Everything, however, was posed by the aforementioned Circular in terms of the "possibility" (for the implementing entities) to request (and obtain) an advance of more than 10% " in exceptional cases ", which included for example the need of having to give the contractor an advance percentage equal to 20% of the contractual amount pursuant to the procurement code.
Legislative Decree no. 19 of 2 March 2024, art. 11 entitled " Procedures for the financial management of PNRR resources ", finally makes the measure of the initial advances payable in favor of the implementing entities into an ordinary element (therefore "normally") to the extent of 30% of the assigned contribution, without prejudice to any higher percentages foreseen by specific further legal provisions. The only condition: the obligation to certify, for the purposes of recognizing the 30% advance, the start of operation of the intervention or the start of the preparatory procedures for the operational phase remains unchanged.
The declared objective of the new regulatory intervention is to allow the timely implementation of the PNRR interventions and the achievement of the related objectives within the expected deadlines; the implicit one, I add, is also to give financial relief to the implementing entities.
Time will tell if this intervention (long hoped for and, we hope, not too late) will have achieved its aim of facilitating the management of the preparatory phases and the start of the initiatives financed with the PNRR funds.
Lawyer Alfonso Polillo
Partner SZA law firm
Administrative law expert
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/appalti-novita-pnrr/ on Sat, 23 Mar 2024 06:45:52 +0000.