The economic recovery of our country is certainly linked to the 211 billion euros made available by the European Union with the Recovery Fund. Very important resources that we will be called to invest by 2026, even if, underlines the CGIA Studies Office, we must not forget that every year, net of interest on the debt, Italian public spending is around 900 billion euros: almost 700 more than the resources we will have to spend in 6 years with the Recovery Fund.

An expense, the public one, which for more than 91 percent is current and is used to pay the salaries of public employees, to allow the consumption of the public car and to pay social benefits.

Now, entrusting all our growth expectations to the "success" of the Recovery Plan is an extremely right and necessary thing, however it is equally crucial that the next government also intensifies its attention on how to use these 900 billion euros and assets every year to a greater extent than has been done so far, a more careful and prudent monitoring system.

• The errors of forecasts on the GDP: Italy lagging behind in the EU

In addition to having public spending often full of waste and squandering, Italy has a sad European record: we find it extremely difficult to develop reliable economic growth forecasts. In the latest annual report of the European Fiscal Board (independent advisory body of the European Commission), published in October 2020 (fourth annual report), an analysis of the differences between actual GDP growth and the projections presented in the stability and convergence during the period 2013-2019.

Compared to the countries of the Euro Area, Italy presents the most critical result: growth forecasts turned out to be high in all 7 years examined (2013-2019). After Italy, there are 5 countries that have estimated the highest forecasts in 5 years out of 7. They are: Belgium, Spain, France, Latvia and Slovakia.

Italy's result is also critical in terms of the average forecast error; in this negative rank we are second only to Slovenia, with an average annual estimate error equal to 1,3 per cent of nominal GDP; this discrepancy translates into an impact on the budget of the public administrations of more than 0,5 per cent of GDP per year (in 7 years around 60 billion euros on the budget of our PA). 

In this regard, we point out a strong inconsistency that has emerged in recent weeks. Just a month after the approval of the € 2021 billion budget law for 40, Parliament last week voted on a budget shift of € 32 billion. Since almost nothing new has happened compared to recent months, why hasn't it been decided to anticipate this deviation in the most important law that is approved every year? By chance, is this decision to review public spending the result of the state of uncertainty in which the Conte bis government was experiencing on the economic front?

• Recovery Plan: many investments, but with low profitability

In the draft of the "National Recovery and Resilience Plan" (our Recovery Plan), approved by the Council of Ministers last January 12, it is clear that of the 210,9 billion euros that the European Union will make available to our country with the Recovery Fund, 65,7 billion will be spent on "existing projects", or already planned, while the remaining 145,2 billion will go to finance "new projects". Therefore, in 2026 the growth of GDP, the year in which the action of the Plan will end, should be 3 percentage points higher than the scenario that would occur without the effect of the additional investments.

This means that against 145,2 billion in capital investments, at the end of the program we will have an increase in GDP of just under 60 billion euros. These figures, by the government's own admission, tell us that the profitability of these jobs will be very low. In other words, in 2026 we would have spent more than double what we “get back” from the construction of these public works. Probably, because the quality of the interventions we are going to implement will have a very low economic and social impact. If even in this case the specificity of the previous Italian executives in overestimating growth is confirmed, in 2026 the reality will be even more disheartening than foreseen in the Plan.

• EU resources are at risk

The conclusion just described by the CGIA Studies Office - many investments, but little profitability - is obviously only a hypothesis, given that in the "National Recovery and Resilience Plan", approved on 12 January last, they are not reported in a detailed the interventions that will be carried out with these 145,2 billion euros. The Plan, in fact, still appears very “smoky”: to date, in fact, it consists of a list of generic lines of intervention to which figures have been added. But, as required by the latest guidelines, Brussels has established these resources will be disbursed only if we make the reforms (justice, taxation, competition, etc.) and if for each planned work we will detail with great precision who does what, how it does it, how long and how much will it cost to make it. Without a government fully in charge and only 3 months after the expiry of the delivery of the Plan, it will not be easy to bring home these resources.

We spend nearly 700 billion more than the recovery fund every year