The European industrial challenge and the Italian NRRP

Sars-CoV2 epidemic was the cause of death of more than 180,000 Italian citizens. The severity of this disease showed to policymakers how easily Italian health services, and particularly hospitals, could be overwhelmed by requests and needs from patients and the general population. As a consequence of the clogging of health services, the government decided to allocate a consistent investment to the community and proximity assistance with a specific section (Mission 6) of the so called "National Recovery and Resilience Plan". The aim of this study is to analyse the economic and social impact of the Mission 6 of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, with particular regard to the most relevant interventions (Community Homes, Community Hospitals, Integrated Home Care), in order to understand its future sustainability. A qualitative research methodology was chosen. Documents containing all the relevant information regarding the sustainability of the plan (called in short "Sustainability Plan") were taken into consideration. In case of missing data regarding the potential costs or expenditure of the aforementioned structures, estimates will be made reviewing literature for similar healthcare services, already implemented and active in Italy. Direct content analysis was chosen as the methodology for data analysis and final reporting of results. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan states that it will create savings of up to €1.18 billion thanks to the re-organization of healthcare facilities, the reduction of hospitalizations, the reduction of inappropriate access to the emergency room, and the containment of pharmaceutical expenditure. This amount will be used to cover the salaries for the healthcare professionals employed in the newly planned healthcare structures. The analysis of this study has taken into account the number of healthcare professionals that will be needed to operationalize the new facilities, as described in the plan and compared them with the reference salaries for each category (doctors, nurses, other healthcare workers). The annual cost for healthcare professionals has been stratified for each structure, with the following results: € 540 million for the personnel of the Community Hospitals ("Ospedali di Comunità"); € 1.1 billion for the personnel of Integrated Home Care Assistance ("Assistenza Domiciliare Integrata"); and € 540 million for the personnel of Community Homes ("Case della Comunità"). The expected € 1.18 billion expenditure is implausible to be sufficient to cover the cost for salaries of all the healthcare professionals needed, which is expected to be around € 2 billion. The National Agency for the Regional Healthcare Services (Agenzia nazionale per i servizi sanitari regionali) calculated that in Emilia-Romagna (the only region in Italy to have already implemented a healthcare structure based on the one described in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan), the activation of Community Hospitals and Community Homes reduced the rate of inappropriate access to emergency rooms by 26% (while in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan expectation is a reduction of at least by 90% for "white codes", the identified code for stable and not urgent patients). Moreover, the hypothesis for the daily cost of stay in the Community Hospital is roughly € 106, while the average current cost in the active Community Hospitals in Italy is € 132 (much higher than the National Recovery and Resilience Plan" National Recovery and Resilience Plan estimate). The underlying principle of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan is highly valuable since it strives to enhance the quality and the quantity of the healthcare services in the country that are too often left out of national investments and programs. Nevertheless, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan has critical issues due to the superficial prevision of cost. The success of the reform appears to be established by decision makers and by their long-term prospective, oriented to overcome the resistance to change.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility reflects unprecedented solidarity through common financing paired with an innovative governance framework. Member states can access grants and loans through the formulation of National Recovery and Resilience Plans, under a set of conditions that include minimum allocation targets and addressing country-specific recommendations. The analysis evaluates whether the governance of the Recovery and Resilience Facility mitigates one of the longstanding weaknesses of the Economic and Monetary Union architecture: fiscal coordination. Assessing the prevalence of green, digital, and social priorities in the (a) National Recovery and Resilience Plans, (b) the country-specific recommendations, and (c) party manifestos through a quantitative and qualitative text analysis shows some convergence toward supranational preferences, albeit only in the green domain. I provide preliminary evidence at the stage of the formulation of the plans of the effectiveness of the Recovery and Resilience Facility fiscal policy coordination by testing whether recovery agendas in the National Recovery and Resilience Plans reflect EU or national priorities. Deviating from the limited implementation of country-specific recommendations within the European Semester, the analysis indicates the governance of the Recovery and Resilience Facility orients the National Recovery and Resilience Plans toward fostering a green recovery. Findings contribute to the assessment of how pandemic recovery instruments innovate EU fiscal governance and longstanding discussions on the ineffectiveness of fiscal coordination within the Economic and Monetary Union, informing the ongoing debate on the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact and a permanent successor to the Recovery and Resilience Facility.

Germany, Italy, and France are – in that order – the three largest manufacturing powers in Europe. But when we measure things not by «manufacturing value added» but in terms of «knowledge-based investments» (i.e. r&d, human capital), which are an excellent indicator of how well-positioned an industrial system is for moving ahead into the future, France overtakes Italy’s second spot. Starting from these rankings, this article sheds light on the new European industrial policy from two different perspectives. First, from the viewpoint of the eu as a whole, presenting a brief summary of the primary eu initiatives that were implemented from 2002 to the present by the European Commission (the so-called «integrated approach» that simultaneously incorporates horizontal measures and vertical applications). Second, from the perspective of the three individual Member States, with particular attention paid to the industrial policy strategies undertaken (or not undertaken) by Germany, France, and Italy within the larger European context. This comparative analysis shows the weaknesses of Italy in terms of policy, with the one exception of the «Piano nazionale Industria 4.0». At a time when it is more and more important to embrace the technological frontier, Italy’s position as the second largest European manufacturing powers is not something we can take for granted: in order to preserve it, both a significant increase in knowledge-based investments and an adequate intervention in key enabling technologies would be necessary. This Italian weakness in terms of strategic policy action is in stark contrast with the wide-ranging studies carried out over the past 10 to 15 years in our country by industrial economists, who have contributed notably to the national and international literature on the new industrial policy.

While much of the recent literature on the impact of COVID-19 has focussed on governance at the EU level and specific policy areas, the changing political institutional arrangements within the EU Member States themselves have received significantly less attention. This article aims to contribute filling this gap by asking: how, and to what extent, has the core executive in Italy changed to manage and implement the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP)? Italy has been heavily hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and has subsequently been allocated the largest proportion of the Next Generation EU (NGEU) funds: it is therefore a ‘most likely’ case of organisational adaptation. We argue that the implementation of the NRRP triggers centralisation of power in the core executive. Such concentration of power, however, takes different forms depending on the composition of the executive. We also find that ‘coordinative’ Europeanisation occurs through the continuous interaction and exchange between the executive actors (political and administrative) based in Rome and the European Commission in Brussels. Such interaction showcases the attempt to manage both further integration and politicisation of the EU. The collaboration between the European Commission and the national executive is based both on the recognition of the value of the political ownership of the NRRP and the importance of the EU support for post-pandemic recovery.

National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRPs) set out the objectives for recovery and building the socio-economic resilience of EU Member States following the crisis caused by COVID-19. In their framework, countries also declare the introduction of structural reforms and investments for their implementation. The author aims to offer a closer look at and characterize the adoption procedure and basic assumptions of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans developed by Visegrád Group Member States, which are among the greatest beneficiaries of the Plans. Thus, it is worth zooming in on the national design and approval procedures for the various recovery plans, their basic assumptions, and procedures for their approval by Union bodies. The reason for researching this issue is the characteristic distribution of accents in existing research. On the one hand, there are many publications on the European Instrument for Reconstruction and Enhancement of Resilience. On the other hand, the analysis of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans of the Visegrad Group countries has not, so far, been the scope of broader legal and comparative research.

The article examines potential linkages between the management of the Eurozone crisis and the EU’s economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It does so by focusing on the Commission and its approach to conditionality-based lending. The analysis employs the concept of inter-crisis learning to argue that the lessons the Commission drew from the Eurozone crisis informed its conditionality-related proposals for the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs). By using qualitative data, including eight elite interviews, the article suggests that the Commission derived lessons regarding the design, negotiation, implementation, and monitoring of conditionality programs. These lessons led to cognitive changes within the organisation and to behavioral changes that were reflected in its proposals regarding the conditionality attached to NRRPs. The article contributes to the literature examining the EU’s economic response to the pandemic by discussing the Commission’s drivers and preferences during that period. It also complements the literature on coordinative Europeanisation by offering insights on how the European Commission shapes its proposals on conditionality-based lending; a central element of its relationship with member states when it comes to crisis management. Finally, it discusses the implications of the article’s main thesis for the process of European integration.

The role of forests in reaching the environmental policies targets of the European Union (EU) is being increasingly recognised. Consequently, investing in the forest sector takes on a fundamental role. Different funding opportunities are already in place in the EU, but there are some limitations in accessing them. New funding opportunities arose more recently. To support the recovery process of Member States (MS) after the Covid-19 pandemic, the EU is making significant efforts through NextGenerationEU, funding MS after the European Commission (EC) approval of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs). No specific guidelines are present to finance the forest sector. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the forest sector has been taken into account in the NRRPs through an analysis of the contents of 26 NRRPs. Financial investments in the sector by action types have also been analysed. Finally, commonalities and differences between MS have been extracted by means of a cluster analysis.Results show that the majority of MS dedicate a portion of their funds to the forest sector and there were no investments in the sector in only four countries. One-third of MS have foreseen a dedicated portion of the funds to the sector. The forest-related themes most represented in the NRRPs are: biodiversity protection, climate adaptation, forest-based ecosystem services management, climate mitigation, rural development and innovation. The cluster analysis identifies three MS clusters, giving evidence about the MS behaviour in a non-ordinary funding situation. The first one is characterised by more traditional countries, while in the other two clusters innovation plays an important role. The second cluster orients innovation towards wood-related products, while innovation in the third cluster is addressed to support forest multifunctionality.Results can support national and European decision-makers to plan national strategies, funds allocation, or to act at European level knowing which are the priorities given by the different MS.

Proposed for the first time by European Commission in May 2020, the “NextGenerationEU” (NGEU) program is the European Union’s most important effort to address key issues relating to public health and healthcare, digital and technological innovation, climate change, sustainable mobility, and key sociocultural aspects. In addition, the NGEU represents a response to the COVID-19 crisis through an extremely powerful financial intervention (over 800 billion euros). Italy is one of the main recipients of the NGEU plan’s resources with almost 200 billion euros received in grants and loans. Implementation of the NGEU in Italy will take place through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP). The NRRP not only describes how the NGEU resources will be used, but it singles out crucial public law reforms in national legislation and organization. Unsurprisingly, public health intervention represents a major component of the NRRP. Here we summarize and discuss the rules, regulations and perspective envisaged by the NRRP to foster effective healthcare and to reshape the Italian National Health System through the redesigning of primary care, enhanced communication between hospital and community healthcare, and stronger implementation of digital technologies in public health. (www.actabiomedica.it)

Using documents from the Historical Archives of the European Union, the article assesses the results of the restructuring of the European Community steel sector carried out at the beginning of the 1980s, considered to be the first European industrial policy. The article concludes that State aid control by the European Commission, through the so-called aid codes, was the main tool of the Community restructuring policy and contributed to resolve the crisis that the sector had been suffering from the mid-1970s, even though the objectives set by the Commission were not fully achieved.

Industrial policy determines the guidelines for developing the innovative power of any entity in the global economy, including the European Union. The effectiveness of industrial policy contributes to the favourable innovation climate and is the driver of economic development. Thus, the analysis of the European Union's current industrial policy and innovation strategy is essential for Ukraine. The article aims to study the current industrial policy and innovation strategy of the European Union. The work examines the current industrial policy and innovation strategy of the European Union. It is noted that the evolution of modern industrial policy in the European Union is associated with the use of two models: vertical (selective) and horizontal (functional). It analyses the provisions of the New Industrial Policy of the European Union 2021–2027, which were grouped in three documents. The measures proposed by the European Commission for the restructuring of European industry have been identified. It has been found that today the European Union ranks only third (after China and the United States) in the development of innovative researce and development. The research reveals that the European Union today actively uses the existing integration tools as a priority to "pull" the lagging countries to the level of innovative development of the advanced group of member states. Restrictions on the domestic policy of the European Union member states in technological development have been systematised. The article analyses the current strategy of the European Union in the field of innovation and reveals the goals and directions of innovation development provided by it. It presents the most important mechanisms that form the basis of the European Union's policy in supporting "open innovation". However, it is concluded that the European Union today is actively using existing integration tools to "pull" lagging countries to the level of innovative development of the advanced group of member states (27), which should lead to increased innovation and competitive power of the European Union as a whole.

The article aims at providing an insight into the reforms outlined within the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan, with a view to showing that they differ from past legislative changes and signal an overall shift in approach (and mindset), for several reasons identifiable in the European context in which the Plan was developed (§ II), in its specific contents aimed at modernising the judicial system (§ III), and in the procedural rules that it imposes for the planning, evaluation and monitoring of legislation (§ IV). While to some observers the reformist spirit driving its steps within the framework of the National Plan has seemed to clash with more traditional and familiar views of criminal law, the analysis demonstrates that the framework of interventions designed and underway within the Italian Plan does not represent a departure from the principles that govern the criminal justice system.

<abstract> <p>The Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine crises fit into the difficult Italian context, which have already been marked by a deep socioeconomic gap between the Centre-North and the South of the country. After a brief examination of the causes that have led to this gap, starting from the analysis of geographical studies on the subject and elaborations of data provided by important research centres in the field, this study aims to point out the sectors of Southern Italy present greater criticalness and backwardness compared to the rest of the country. Then, we identify the most suitable programmatic lines to increase investments in such sectors, as already provided for the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP—in Italy PNRR), a program with which the government intends to manage Next Generation EU funds or NGEU (the economic recovery and revitalization tool introduced by the European Union to restore the losses caused by the pandemic). The article concludes with a reflection on the main reasons for the difficulties that the NRRP is encountering by implementing this program, mainly related to the insufficient allocation of resources and competencies of the territorial authorities that are entrusted with the task of managing and planning policies to rebalance the country*s growth potential.</p> </abstract>

Italy's agricultural sector, a cornerstone of its economy, has been facing mounting challenges from frequent droughts and water shortages, as the ones of 2022, 2023 and 2024, emphasizing the urgent need for effective and informed water management strategies. This study addresses this critical issue by evaluating water demand of rainfed and irrigated agriculture at high spatial resolution across Italy. This is done by integrating very high-resolution crop-specific datasets with irrigation intensity maps to develop a detailed land and crop cover map tracing 22 key crops at a 1 km resolution. This map then informs the WATNEEDS model, which solves the daily soil water balance in a crop-specific way to derive blue and green water demands. Validation of crop maps is performed against ground data by the Italian bureau of statistics (ISTAT), with satisfying results (86.7% of the model’s estimates present high correlation and low error w.r.t. ISTAT’s data). Irrigation volumes align well with regional statistics despite limitations in the validation sample. While uncertainties persist due to input data constraints and assumptions about hydrological processes and agricultural practices, the results offer significant opportunities to enhance water resource allocation. Among these, the findings of this study are supporting the identification of optimal locations for Small Agricultural Reservoirs (SmAR), a critical measure to mitigate the impacts of drought and ensure agricultural sustainability. This study was carried out within the CASTLE project and the RETURN Extended Partnership and received funding from the European Union Next-GenerationEU (National Recovery and Resilience Plan – NRRP, Mission 4, Component 2, Investment 1.1 – D.D. n. 104 02/02/2022 PRIN 2022 project code MUR 2022XSERL4 - CUP  B53D23007590006 and National Recovery and Resilience Plan –NRRP, Mission 4, Component2, Investment 1.3 – D.D. 1243 2/8/2022, PE0000005)

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak at the beginning of 2020 strongly affected the global economic, social and budgetary area, requiring an urgent and coordinated response both at the Union and Member State level to cope with the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic.In this article we pay particular attention to the evolution of the concept of resilience and the ways to strengthen the European states’ resilience in the face of threats, especially following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, while analyzing the implementation state of the objectives outlined in Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The aim is to define the concept of resilience and to highlight the methods for increasing the European states’ resilience, as well as to present how Romania applies European instruments to strengthen its national and regional resilience. Analyzing the preliminary data on the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, it can be stated that Romania is making considerable efforts to strengthen its resilience and is on track to comply with the European Recovery and Resilience Mechanism measures.

The resurgence of manufacturing in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and increased state intervention in response to rising global tensions have reignited the debate on European industrial policy. The European Commission’s focus on aligning industrial renewal with digital transition and technological sovereignty has led some scholars to posit a departure from neoliberalism. This article adopts a long-term perspective to investigate the evolution of the European Commission’s narrative on industrial policy, particularly regarding the digital transformation of manufacturing. Through a qualitative analysis of 84 Communications from 1967 to 2022, we argue that the greater prominence of state intervention signifies a reconfiguration of European industrial policy, not a paradigmatic rupture with the past. Notably, the shift from a ‘market failure’ to a ‘systemic failure’ rationale provides the European Commission with greater discretion in directing state aid and policy initiatives, even while maintaining core principles of market regulation.