TURIN. “The third installment of the funds from the Pnrr will arrive shortly and when Italy has received it, it will have had half of the funds allocated”. So the European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Paolo Gentiloni, interviewed by Massimo Giannini at the Turin Economy Festival. The former premier explains that on the Recovery the EU «is ready to collaborate and make the updating of the plan as easy as possible. We are waiting for the proposals to arrive. I see no risks from Italy’s attitude. The new Italian government, both with Meloni’s choices and with those of Giorgetti, on the economy as well as in foreign policy, has done everything to show itself coherent with the European and Atlantic positioning of the country – says Gentiloni – The point is consider the importance of updating the Pnrr not as a sort of annoying practice to please Brussels, but as an unrepeatable and extraordinary opportunity. I think Visco was right to call you back yesterday: it’s a great occasion».
Here are the key points of the intervention
Il decoupling
The “decoupling” between the West and China “is not only a mistake, it is impossible. It is enough to talk to any CEO of a large multinational company to understand that a total division of the American economy from the Chinese one is not possible” and we must also “avoid the rhetoric of ‘the West’ and ‘the rest’, i.e. with da the G7 on one side and the rest of the world on the other, because by pursuing this approach the rest of the world will end up prevailing».
War
«We are not in a context comparable to that of the Cold War, which was a world in which the economic interweaving was very, very relative, in which there was no interweaving between the USA and the USSR that we see globally today. Today, a choice in which the ideology of geopolitics prevails over multilateralism would be suicidal, and the European Union will certainly do everything to avoid it”.
The environment
«We are in a global race for clean technologies. This race has different terrains, it is played on rare minerals, on semiconductors, on renewable energy technologies. Europe is doing well on some things, such as offshore wind power, heat pumps, but also on rare minerals we could recover, in Belgium and Sweden we are doing it. However, we must think of a partnership with Africa, a partnership that China, for example, does not propose. In this case we would have important ground on rare minerals. In any case, the perspective is there, in some sectors the technologies in Europe are extraordinary. However, it must be said that China, for example, spends 600 billion on clean technology projects, the United States is also investing a lot. For Europe, the challenge is not lost, we are not condemned to repeat the solar experience in which 15 years ago we were world leaders and today we import everything from China. We are not condemned, but we need common strategies, common objectives, common funding”.
Il Recovery
«The Pnrr projects were made in the midst of the pandemic, perhaps some projects can be recycled but is this a cause for scandal? No one can say that 265,000 asylum places are not useful”.
He Repowers
“About ten days ago the request for an update” of the Italian Pnrr “on Repower Eu and the Commission is already examining it”, but there is still no change to the plan like the ones “we have received in the last 10 days on the update of the French, Greek and German plans. We know that it is difficult for Italy because it is a bigger plan».