These are pages of a book that browse themselves to tell that dream that struggles to come true. Inside there are stories that become won with other stories and all together describe that open scar in a world that finds no peace. Current Europe is a defeated house. First the pandemic, then the war economy raised the walls and enhanced the river of the discomfort. And the house, now, wanders in search of a strong identity, a recognition, of a consensus. Klaus Algieri, president of the Cosenza Chamber of Commerce, for two days national epicenter of studies, training and information of continental discipline, has indicated the coordinates to be followed, contained in the manifesto of his body, an international model of democratic participation: “Europe must be reconstructed, but cannot only be an operation to be performed in the parliaments, between the parties. Of course, it is their responsibility, they must have a vision, a line, a thought. But intermediate bodies have a duty to help them get them out of mediocrity, to push them towards the goal. As? Starting from the bottom. The Chamber of Commerce has shown it by moving to the various territories, going towards businesses and becoming a hinge between institutions and real world. Only in this way do companies prepare to reconstruct Italy and Europe “.
The curtain falls on the forum dedicated to the theme of “The protection of the financial interests of the European Union”, an event that ended with the delivery of the Philatelic Folder of the Chamber of Commerce to the speakers. In the “Petraglia” room, for two days, reflections, proposals and ideas have flourished to transform the push of the European Union into a resource. The scenario was described by the authoritative voices of institutional representatives such as the constitutional judge Angelo Buscema, the regional prosecutor of the Court of Auditors of Calabria, Romeo Ermenegildo Palma, the regional prosecutor of the Court of Auditors of the Aosta Valley, Quirino Lorelli, the coordinator of the meeting sections of the Court of Auditors during the control, Carlo Chiappinelli, the National Councilor Forensic, Claudio Conjoles, the European Prosecutor. Delegate Eppo, Adriano Scudieri, the General of the Guardia di Finanza, Bruno Bartoloni, and the official of the SPOKESPERSON European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf), Pierluigi Caterino. Interventions that were coordinated by the general secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, Erminia Day. Many seeds resident in the wake of the prag of the foresight of President Algieri who thanked everyone, focusing in particular on the judge Buscema who “gave this territory the opportunity to face a quality study at national and European level”.
The European Union walks with a slow and padded step of suffering. The compass that marks the route and prospects of Europe is the reasoning of the judge Buscema who aims to overturn that idea of the citizens who see in the EU a lump suffered from grudges, an elsewhere without peace. For this reason, the high magistrate warns: “We need to awaken the sense of belonging of citizens to the European Union. We must therefore guarantee transparent management of public resources so that citizens and businesses can return to believe in institutions. In short, it is necessary to recover the sense of trust. We are citizens of the European Union. Funds are the resources of the community and must be used according to a responsible and common good scheme. Moreover, public resources come from taxpayers and it is therefore essential that these funds return to citizens through works and services. There is a solid legal framework that protects citizens and businesses, tools that serve to strengthen social and economic cohesion. Of course, contrasting fraud and protecting the European Union’s budget is not an exclusive responsibility of the institutions but represents the challenge that involves all of us so that public money is armored in the enclosures of legality and managed effectively and transparently. A few but guaranteed rules are needed ».
Palma: fraud is the betrayal of the EU
It is like a virus, a pandemic that spreads without any control. Every day a new outbreak is discovered. Calabria burns in the middle of the flames of the fraud. The regional prosecutor of the Court of Auditors of Calabria, Romeo Ermenegildo Palma, who in his speech ignited the spotlight on the problem of pathologies that manifest themselves in the procedures of the loans: “In the regional territory, in the last five years, the agricultural sector, that of clean energy, contributions to tourism, research and innovation, knows this well. The last sentence to the return of the sums acquired in fraud is of a considerable amount: 7 million euros. But if we reflect for a moment, the sanction is the certification of the failure of the unification objectives. EU money is according to cohesion and development objectives. When the conditions of the fraud are created, it is the same philosophy of the use of the unification resources that is betrayed ». Palma suggests exploring the management procedures, instrumental to the use of the sums, taking into account that it is “from the malfunction and from the pathologies of those procedures that can be reached at the flaws of the system that determines the possibility of the fraud”. Palma warns: «There are important volumes of PNRR money and as many resources that derive from the FESR-FESE 2021-2017 operating program. The statistical data does not photograph the success and the actual protection of financial interest because in the name of the percentage of expenditure we run and forget about regions with objective one, such as Calabria, and we leave them in a dangerous ford because it undermines the trust of the system “. The use of university experience, according to the prosecutor, can finally be a 0 km solution to improve the quality of the design.