Pnrr, why do Dragoons and Brussels play dumb on the stadium in Florence?
All the details of the story that is now making the European Commission turn up their noses – namely, among others, the redevelopment of the Florence stadium – were known, discussed and approved by the national bodies since last April, given the decree signed by ministers Franco and Lamorgese … The deepening of Giuseppe Liturri
Does anyone remember the names of the Minister of the Economy and the Interior in office on April 22, 2022?
For those with a short memory, let's remember that they are Daniele Franco and Luciana Lamorgese.
We recall this date to go into the details of a case that promises to be emblematic in describing the difficulties in implementing the investments financed by the PNRR, a chaos that rivals the Tower of Babel.
Because, as we will see, one of the two here: either the Commission is putting its weight into stabbing the Meloni government in the back or the much-vaunted swift and resolute action of the Draghi government in achieving the objectives and targets of the PNRR is proving to be a rush that gave birth to blind kittens.
We are referring to the request for payment of 21.8 billion (third installment of the PNRR, 19 billion net of the advance already collected), made by the Meloni government to the Commission at the end of December. 55 objectives and goals, the achievement of which Minister Raffaele Fitto proudly announced , of which 25 had already been achieved by the Draghi government and 30 were achieved in a few weeks by the government supported by the newly elected parliamentary majority.
But what should have been a rather routine examination by the Commission is turning into an endless ordeal . The two months envisaged by the regulations for issuing the preliminary assessment became three at first and, with the latest postponement , four.
There appear to be three points of friction between Rome and Brussels: port concessions, district heating systems and integrated urban plans. And it is precisely on this last point that we want to dwell. The goal that the Italian government had to overcome was that of the presentation, by 31 December 2022, of the investment plan for urban regeneration projects in metropolitan areas. A measure worth 2.5 billion, managed by the Ministry of the Interior, which " provides for participatory urban planning, with the aim of regenerating, revitalizing and enhancing large degraded urban areas, with particular attention to the creation of new services available to the citizenship and the redevelopment of the accessibility of the services themselves and of the infrastructural equipment, thus transforming the most vulnerable territories into smart cities and sustainable realities" , for the pursuit of the following purposes:
– promote better social inclusion by reducing marginalization and situations of social degradation;
– promote urban regeneration through the recovery, renovation and eco-sustainable re-functionalization of building structures and public areas, the energy and water efficiency of buildings and the reduction of soil consumption also through demolition and reconstruction operations aimed at reducing the waterproofing of soil already consumed with modification of outlines and urban systems;
– support projects related to smart cities, with particular reference to transport and energy consumption.
The design effort was remarkable. On 6 December 2021, the Viminale issued the decree for the identification of projects, the Metropolitan Cities got to work, proposed their projects, discussed them, modified them in numerous meetings with the Ministry and ANCI and they submitted them definitively by the March 22 deadline. And so finally on April 22 Franco and Lamorgese were able to sign the decree with which the 31 projects were selected and the resources were assigned to the implementing bodies.
In that decree, the fourteen largest Metropolitan Cities of the country did their best to combine the needs of the territory and the stringent parameters imposed by the Commission and carefully justified their choices. Among these, Florence presented a Plan (“Sport and Wellness – Next Re_Generation Firenze 2026”) for 71.6 million, among which 55 million for the city of Florence alone stand out.
The plan reads verbatim that "the key project is the redevelopment of the Artemio Franchi stadium in the Municipality of Florence, an intervention included in the broader regeneration project dedicated to sport in the Campo di Marte district through the restyling of the sports facility and the insertion of new functions intended for citizens even on days when competitions are not held (pubs, restaurants, nursery schools, auditoriums, … ).
So all the details of the affair that is now making the Commission turn up their noses were known, discussed and approved by the national bodies since last April. That money was for the stadium and then it was good for everyone. And let it not be said that, with all the control rooms, task forces, technical secretariats, mission units, central and non-central services , someone has not called Brussels to understand in advance the coherence of the projects presented with the objectives and purposes of the PNRR .
Since we believe that that work was done hand in hand between Rome and Brussels – unless we assign the license of incompetent and naive to Draghi and his technicians – then the expectation of the Commission in releasing those funds confirms the worst hypotheses about the good faith and the excess of discretion that they assumed in Brussels in evaluating each installment of the PNRR.
This is the disastrous thicket we slipped into for a plate of lentils, even taken on loan.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/pnrr-perche-draghiani-e-bruxelles-fanno-gli-gnorri-sullo-stadio-di-firenze/ on Sat, 01 Apr 2023 18:15:15 +0000.