In this note two main points are discussed: the first is about the reasons why Italy’s “Mezzogiorno” (the 5 Regions in the South of Italy) could be considered one of the main failures of the EU cohesion policy in the programming period 2007-2013. The second, based on the information currently available, is the risk that the lessons that could be learned from the past could be forgotten, not producing a significant positive impact on the strategy devised for the current programming period 2014-2020. For the first point the analysis will be mainly based on the information provided by recent academic research, the Open-Cohesion Data Base published by the Italian Ministry of Economic development (2014), and by European Sources, in particular the Reports on Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion by the European Commission. For the second point, the information available on the Italian Partnership Agreement and on the Operational programmes that are being prepared for the 2014-2020 programming period will be considered. Also, some recent governmental decisions that produce a direct impact on the implementation of the EU structural funds programmes will be discussed. Southern Regions have suffered the strongest impact of the global crisis, and showed the slowest rate of recovery among the European Regions, apart a few extreme cases, like Greece. The poor performance of Mezzogiorno Regions can be measured both in absolute terms and in relative terms, compared to the Northern regions of Italy and to other EU regions. In these comparisons, the performance of Italy’s Mezzogiorno has been the weakest, and at the end of the 2007-2013 period the distance in the level of economic development from the most developed regions in Italy and in Europe increased more than in any other less developed country of the EU. Demographic indicators of Mezzogiorno are among the worst in Europe, with a new growth of emigration rates, comparable only to those from the first decades after the Second World War, and a fertility rate largely below the minimum needed for demographic stability. Looking at efficiency and the effectiveness of structural funds implementation, very low rate of absorption of the European Structural Funds is still observable in all Southern Regions, for all Funds. Still now, less than a year to the end of the implementation period, in some regions more than 1/3 of committed funds are still to be spent. Since the beginning of the period, programming activities showed many delays, and frequent revisions of the programme financial allocation were approved to adjust the strategy initially designed. At the same time, a wide dispersion of interventions in all sectors and areas was planned and/or resulted in practice, missing in most cases the possibility to reach the critical mass needed to make a lasting impact. Looking at the financed operations, a very strong fragmentation can be observed, with thousands of micro projects, limited if not null lasting impact on economic and social development. The new regulatory framework approved for the 2014-2020 programming period has already faced in Italy some of the same difficulties that hampered the success of the cohesion policy in the previous programming period in Italy’s Mezzogiorno. A first misstep was the much delayed approval of the Italian Partnership agreement. In the new framework, the Partnership Agreement is supposed to establish the framework for the single programmes’ strategy at national level. By approving it much later than most of the European Countries, Italy has already lost the first year of implementation. A second example of a recurring issue from the previous period is that of excessive fragmentation. The concentration principle, one of the pillars of the new programming strategy, is again challeged: the new programmes have established hundreds of different action lines. The SMART specialization strategies, one of the main innovations of the new period, that are supposed to help European regions to concentrate resources on innovations capitalizing on the main natural, industrial and social assets, have been translated at Mezzogiorno level in broad and unbinding strategies, often simply replicating a structural description of the regional economies. The reduction of the National co-financing, proposed by the Italian government mainly to reduce the risk of low and delayed absorption, if implemented without addressing the structural factors that have multiplied the time needed for the execution of public investments in Italy, could just lead to a further decline in the investment rate in Mezzogiorno. The risk of further divergence of Mezzogiorno from Italy’s North and Centre looks again imminent, without substantial improvement of effectiveness of Structural Funds Programmes and, what’s more, without a new attention to Mezzogiorno of the national economic policy agenda.

ITALY’S MEZZOGIORNO: 2007-2013 EU COHESION POLICY’S MAIN FAILURE. DID WE LEARN ANYTHING USEFUL FOR THE 2014-2020 PERIOD?

PERRETTI, Biagio
2015-01-01

Abstract

In this note two main points are discussed: the first is about the reasons why Italy’s “Mezzogiorno” (the 5 Regions in the South of Italy) could be considered one of the main failures of the EU cohesion policy in the programming period 2007-2013. The second, based on the information currently available, is the risk that the lessons that could be learned from the past could be forgotten, not producing a significant positive impact on the strategy devised for the current programming period 2014-2020. For the first point the analysis will be mainly based on the information provided by recent academic research, the Open-Cohesion Data Base published by the Italian Ministry of Economic development (2014), and by European Sources, in particular the Reports on Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion by the European Commission. For the second point, the information available on the Italian Partnership Agreement and on the Operational programmes that are being prepared for the 2014-2020 programming period will be considered. Also, some recent governmental decisions that produce a direct impact on the implementation of the EU structural funds programmes will be discussed. Southern Regions have suffered the strongest impact of the global crisis, and showed the slowest rate of recovery among the European Regions, apart a few extreme cases, like Greece. The poor performance of Mezzogiorno Regions can be measured both in absolute terms and in relative terms, compared to the Northern regions of Italy and to other EU regions. In these comparisons, the performance of Italy’s Mezzogiorno has been the weakest, and at the end of the 2007-2013 period the distance in the level of economic development from the most developed regions in Italy and in Europe increased more than in any other less developed country of the EU. Demographic indicators of Mezzogiorno are among the worst in Europe, with a new growth of emigration rates, comparable only to those from the first decades after the Second World War, and a fertility rate largely below the minimum needed for demographic stability. Looking at efficiency and the effectiveness of structural funds implementation, very low rate of absorption of the European Structural Funds is still observable in all Southern Regions, for all Funds. Still now, less than a year to the end of the implementation period, in some regions more than 1/3 of committed funds are still to be spent. Since the beginning of the period, programming activities showed many delays, and frequent revisions of the programme financial allocation were approved to adjust the strategy initially designed. At the same time, a wide dispersion of interventions in all sectors and areas was planned and/or resulted in practice, missing in most cases the possibility to reach the critical mass needed to make a lasting impact. Looking at the financed operations, a very strong fragmentation can be observed, with thousands of micro projects, limited if not null lasting impact on economic and social development. The new regulatory framework approved for the 2014-2020 programming period has already faced in Italy some of the same difficulties that hampered the success of the cohesion policy in the previous programming period in Italy’s Mezzogiorno. A first misstep was the much delayed approval of the Italian Partnership agreement. In the new framework, the Partnership Agreement is supposed to establish the framework for the single programmes’ strategy at national level. By approving it much later than most of the European Countries, Italy has already lost the first year of implementation. A second example of a recurring issue from the previous period is that of excessive fragmentation. The concentration principle, one of the pillars of the new programming strategy, is again challeged: the new programmes have established hundreds of different action lines. The SMART specialization strategies, one of the main innovations of the new period, that are supposed to help European regions to concentrate resources on innovations capitalizing on the main natural, industrial and social assets, have been translated at Mezzogiorno level in broad and unbinding strategies, often simply replicating a structural description of the regional economies. The reduction of the National co-financing, proposed by the Italian government mainly to reduce the risk of low and delayed absorption, if implemented without addressing the structural factors that have multiplied the time needed for the execution of public investments in Italy, could just lead to a further decline in the investment rate in Mezzogiorno. The risk of further divergence of Mezzogiorno from Italy’s North and Centre looks again imminent, without substantial improvement of effectiveness of Structural Funds Programmes and, what’s more, without a new attention to Mezzogiorno of the national economic policy agenda.
2015
9789279452338
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11563/106895
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