This is how the Court of Auditors splits on the Pnrr

The role of the Court of Auditors in the analysis of public policies. The criticisms of the accounting judiciary on the Pnrr, the reply of Minister Fitto and the questions of prof. Balestra (Council of the Presidency of the Court of Auditors) which sound like indirect criticism…

Is it appropriate for the Court of Auditors to make interventions that risk creating economic damage to the country's system? Luigi Balestra , full professor of Civil Law at the Department of Legal Sciences of the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, asks himself the question from the columns of the Sole 24 Ore .

The professor. Balestra, a lay member of the Court of Auditors, of which he was Vice President of the Presidency Council until 2021 and president of the steering committee of the Economic-Social Observatory Italy restarts and Parliamentary Representative in the Presidency Council of the Court of Auditors , he wonders whether the political decision-maker, as well as the bodies of the Higher Accounting Control Institution itself, should not carry out a "profound reflection on the persistent usefulness of keeping together, in a single judicial complex, functions that are all too different from each other".

THE SUBSTANTIAL CONTROL TASKS OF THE COURT OF AUDITORS

The Court of Auditors has among its tasks the "assessment of economy, efficiency and effectiveness regarding the acquisition and use of financial resources" from the funds of the PNRR . The Court also reports every six months to Parliament on the state of implementation of the PNRR . In addition to this the art. 22, paragraph 2, of Legislative Decree no. 76 of 2020 , established the Concomitant Board of Control , at the Central control section on the State administrations, with the aim of " intervening during the implementation of a plan, program or project, exerting an accelerating and propulsive action of the administrative action and ensuring, at the same time, the correct use of the resources remitted to public management".

DELAYS IN HYDROGEN EXPERIMENTAL PROJECTS

Therefore, it is one of the tasks of the Court, and of the concurrent control board, to enter into the merits of the projects and not limit itself to verifying the control of the procedures. And the resolutions of 3 May 2023 enter into the merits (No. 17/2023/CCC and no. 18/2023/CCC ) in which the concurrent Board of Control examined the implementation of the investments concerning the Experimentation of hydrogen for road transport and the Installation of electric recharging infrastructure . The body has highlighted some critical issues regarding the achievement of the goals set for the current semester. In particular, the Court underlines "the failure to achieve" the Community milestone which required the awarding of contracts for at least 40 hydrogen refueling stations for road transport by 31 March.

THE COURT OF AUDITORS POINTS THE FINGER AT MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES

This "by now consolidated" delay would be produced by "a general programming defect". So serious as to give rise to the risk of " reduction of the financial contribution made available by the EU " since "these critical issues can be qualified as serious managerial irregularities for the purposes of managerial responsibility". "It is the first time – writes Il Sole 24 Ore – that the Court of Auditors has gone this far in examining the progress of the Plan", so much so as to evoke "the hypothesis that managers may be personally called to answer for any failures in achieving one of the objectives of the Pnrr".

MINISTER FITTO'S REPLY TO THE COURT OF AUDITORS

Minister Raffaele Fitto intervened on these points, underlining how the Court can identify "serious management irregularities" and report them to the competent administration for the purposes of managerial responsibility" but not question the achievement or otherwise of the European milestones. These prerogatives, according to the Minister for European Affairs, for Cohesion Policies and for the PNNR, belong only to the Community Executive vis-à-vis the Member State. “ We are working to make the best use of resources – said the minister -. I am convinced that a good job can be done, in agreement with the European Commission and with the entire institutional system”.

THE PROFESSOR. BALESTRA SUGGESTS FLEXIBILITY TO THE COURT

The professor. Luigi Balestra was appointed by the Senate of the Republic as representative of the Parliament in the Presidency Council of the Court of Auditors (2018-2022), and held the position of Vice-President in the period September 2020-September 2021. Furthermore, in June 2021 he was called by the Deputy Minister for Economic Development to be part of the Working Group which has taken office at the MISE and which will be engaged in the elaboration of proposals for a new strategy on industrial policies. Today in the Sole 24 Ore he writes that the Court, with the resolution on the "failure to achieve the European milestone M2C2-14 as at 31 March 2023", allegedly "arrogated to itself a power that belongs only to the European Commission". The decision of the Court, according to prof. Balestra, could “ unleash conditioning effects in the presence of the European institutions ”. Another crucial point, and worrying according to prof. Balestra, is the one in which the Court "urges MIT to promote the procedure with which to assert managerial responsibility, as a consequence of the ascertained serious managerial irregularities". Furthermore, the prof. Balestra suggests using greater flexibility in analyzing "the monumental activity that the Public Administration is called upon to take on in order to efficiently implement the Pnrr".

DOUBTS ABOUT THE COLLABORATIVE FUNCTION OF THE COURT

Finally, Prof. Balestra, wondered whether it would be appropriate for the Court, which should help "the entire public administration to spend public money well and quickly", adopt " a ruling that risks creating significant economic damage to the State-community (connected to the failure liquidation of an entire installment of the Pnrr, approximately 16 billion)". From this reasoning derives the doubt/suggestion on the usefulness of "holding together, in a single judicial complex, functions that are far too different from each other, and this also due to the psychological attitude required of the respective operators".