Meeting in the great hall with the economist Carlo Cottarelli

by Irene De Marzo

22 March, 2022 - Between the persistence of the pandemic and the start of the conflict in Ukraine, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan has assumed even greater relevance for the future of Italy. In fact, new challenges are opening up for the country – and for all of Europe – such as those related to energy dependence from abroad and the need to rapidly build a path towards the ecological transition. Therefore, a methodical allocation of European resources is fundamental. These issues were discussed last March with Carlo Cottarelli, director of the Observatory on Italian Public Accounts of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, in the event "The Italian economy after Covid" held in the main hall of theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma.

"80% of the expenditure foreseen in the PNRR – underlined Cottarelli – it goes towards valid scopes, but too little is allocated to people, including training and education". According to Cottarelli, the risk of a lack of attention to education could condition the recovery of the country system in terms of technological skills, considering that since 2007 public spending for schools has been the most cut and that this has strong consequences from the point of view of productivity and innovation.

On the other hand, the director of the Observatory on Public Accounts underlined some noteworthy aspects of the Plan such as the "focus on reforms and investments". On the other hand, continued the Cattolica economist, the Plan captures some of the country's problems, identifying, for example, the cause of the increase in poverty from 2008 to today in a drop in income levels and not in its redistribution. Therefore, to improve the situation it is necessary "grow more, thus creating more resources". Another commendable aspect, according to Cottarelli, is the personalized approach of the Italian plan, which could be taken as a model in the reform of the stability pact and which, compared to the past, should provide specific programs for each country to be reapproved every 4-5 years on the basis of the results achieved and national growth prospects.