EU Is Open To Review Italian Requests On Tweaks To Recovery Fund

(Bloomberg) -- The European Commission would be willing to review Italian proposals to adjust the terms of some of its Recovery Fund projects, according to European Economics Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni.

“There are some margins to renegotiate the Recovery Fund, we have approved revisions for three countries Luxembourg, Germany, Finland, naturally these were smaller revisions than what would involve Italy,” he told reporters in Cernobbio, Italy. “When amendment proposals arrive from Italy the Commission will analyze them with maximum flexibility.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has made no secret of her desire to alter the country's plans to spend the lion's share of some €800 billion in EU funds. So far the extent of the changes she can achieve remains an open question.

Italy has already received €67 billion, but so far it has struggled to allocate and spend the money as quickly as planned, with authorization processes delayed by red tape. 

Earlier this week, Italy's EU affairs minister Raffaele Fitto said the country probably won't complete some of the projects needed to unlock European Union recovery funds by their 2026 deadline.

“Despite all the crises we've been through, we've had an increase of public investments so the antidote to stagnation risk and the recipe to relaunch growth is the Recovery Fund,” Gentiloni said Saturday at the Ambrosetti workshop on Lake Como.

Speaking separately, Italian Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said that “the implementation of the Recovery Fund is a government priority.”

He acknowledged that Italy's public administration wasn't prepared for the extra administrative burden that an endeavor of this magnitude entailed.    

--With assistance from Flavia Rotondi.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.