Giorgia Meloni: "We will check with the European Union how to update the Pnrr"

Today the President of the Council of Ministers, Giorgia Meloni, spoke via video link to the assembly of the National Association of Italian Municipalities (Anci), and it was above all an opportunity to take stock of how the executive intends to move with respect to European funds of the

and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr) which outlines its destinations.

"I am sorry that my presence has interrupted a fundamental debate on the subject of Russian aggression against Ukraine", Meloni however began, "I want to send a hug to the mayor of Lviv", who is also connected with the assembly: " The Italian government will continue to stand proudly in support of the Ukrainian cause."

"I am sorry not to be able to participate in person, I would never have missed being present in person but as you know we are not in a normal condition: the government was born in a particular period, in which there are very complex deadlines" such as the law of budget on which "we are working at top speed", he later explained.

Pnrr "unavoidable", but to be updated

"We must verify with the EU the most suitable measures to update the Pnrr".

Meloni, albeit cautiously, confirms the line of a revision of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, announced during the electoral campaign.

"As President Mattarella said", recalled the president, "the Pnrr is an appointment that Italy cannot avoid, an extraordinary opportunity to modernize Italy: so that resources do not remain on paper, important Municipalities, Provinces and Regions.

The Government is ready to do everything possible to allow the Municipalities to play their role to the fullest.

In recent years they have been fundamental for public works, without the intermediation of the Regions: an important innovation but also a challenge, and the Municipalities need the support of the State”.

"Today - he continues - we are in the phase in which we are called to deal concretely with the start of construction sites, for this reason it is obviously necessary to speed up the process of approving projects and issuing opinions, it is a huge issue: we are absolutely open to any useful contribution In the transition between the allocation and use of resources, obviously as was inevitable, all the system problems of fragmented and complex rigid rules emerge. Certain, simple, stable rules are needed".

The premier then spoke of the need to "put the municipalities in a position to manage some services", she underlined that "we have started monitoring the cohesion funds: they must be included in a more organic programming that gives the nation an overall strategic vision". 

Centrality to the municipalities

The prime minister addressed the audience assuring that she "firmly believes in the role of mayors, it's not flattery: in the programmatic report to Parliament a few weeks ago I said that among the government's priorities there is precisely that of giving a new centrality to municipalities of Italy”, on which “the Italian identity is based.

Mayors, today more than yesterday, are in the forefront of political commitment, they carry out the most difficult work in the institutional sphere". They often face problems "with insufficient tools" to give "effective answers" but "if someone is afraid to mayor, better do another job".

Meloni then mentions an episode of "Don Camillo and Peppone written by the great Giovannino Guareschi when public opinion tells Peppone '