“Not a euro of community funds was lost, it was an objective that seemed out of our reach and which instead we achieved”. The president of the Calabria Region said itRoberto Occhiuto, connected from Rome at the opening of the third Supervisory Committee on European Funds held in Catanzaro. In taking stock of the previous 2014-20 planning, the Governor said that “in the last committee, in July, skepticism reigned and the certain fact was that we would never have achieved the spending targets. Instead we succeeded in the objective, cutting maximum use of retrospective projects compared to the past. We went from over 30 projects in November 2021 to less than 20%. This is not enough for us because we would like this use to be close to zero, as it is a practice that does not guarantee quality of expenditure”.
Regarding the sore point of the community infringement procedures on environmental issues, Occhiuto also added that “a quantity of resources has been invested that allows us to estimate for 2029 the possibility of closing the infringement procedures in Calabria which have now lasted for over 25 years”. With reference to the new 2021/2027 programming – whose overall budget amounts to over 3 billion – the President of the Region reported the spending projection for the current year of 148 million euros and 318 million for 2025. “These data, although they are good, do not satisfy me. Among the objectives that the regional government has assigned to the individual departments is that of reaching at least 40% commitment of the program by the end of the year, objectives which in my opinion are achievable”.
Maurizio Nicolai, general manager of the Unitary Programming Department, then explained that “890 million euros have been invested so far for ongoing spending commitments on approximately 28% of the program. We have forced the departments to draw up action plans such as those on schools and families, already approved, and implementing industrial policies for small and medium-sized enterprises”.