«Greater voice for the territories in the construction of the new EU budget»

When we talk about the South, the risk is to use words that we have already heard: gaps, delays, infrastructure, employment, young people leaving their homeland. True words, but no longer sufficient to describe the complexity and potential of this part of the country.

For this reason I read the Report edited by Roberto Garofoli with particular attention. Because, beyond the individual proposals, it poses an essential question: how to transform the extraordinary season of investments we have experienced into a development perspective that lasts over time? The Report was born from the need to question Italy's growth after the Pnrr and brings together the cohesion, competitiveness and quality of the institutions that have accompanied the path of Italy and the South in recent years. It is a question that concerns the entire country, but which takes on particular weight in the South.

The South, in recent years, has demonstrated that it is not condemned to marginality. It has shown productive capacity, entrepreneurial energy, universities and research centers capable of competing, territories that have been able to attract investments and administrations that, put in the conditions to work continuously, have been able to implement complex programs and transform resources into construction sites, services and works that today are part of the lives of citizens. Puglia has also given concrete proof of this ability, but for this reason we cannot be satisfied with the results obtained: growth, if it does not become structural, risks remaining a parenthesis.

The point, therefore, is what remains of these investments. We need to ask ourselves what we have accomplished with these funds and what we have learned from managing these programs. Valid questions for local institutions as well as for governments grappling with new policies that can accompany the territories.

Here the most delicate question arises. We are in the final part of the 2021-2027 programming and we are called to build the next cycle. The transition phase asks us for at least some additional reflection. Because we cannot get to that step when the resources have already been defined and the rules already written, without having started a discussion between the actors in the field. This means being able to decide whether a territory will have the resources to complete an infrastructure, whether a company will be able to count on multi-year instruments to invest, whether a university will be able to consolidate a research path, whether a Municipality will be able to plan a work without finding itself in a financial gap.