Commission endorses preliminary assessment of Italy’s fifth payment request under the Recovery and Resilience Facility

Today, the Commission has endorsed a positive preliminary assessment of 53 milestones and targets linked to Italy’s fifth payment request, for €11 billion (net of pre-financing) under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the centrepiece of NextGenerationEU. At the time of submission, the request included 52 milestones and targets.

The fifth payment request covers important steps in the delivery of 14 reforms and 22 investments that will drive positive change for citizens and businesses in Italy in areas including competition law, public procurement, waste and water management, justice, the spending review framework, as well as secondary and tertiary education.

Flagship measures in this payment request include:

National Programme for waste management: This programme has improved separate urban waste collection and led to the closure of 22 irregular landfills.
Reforms of the education system: This comprehensive set of reforms aims to improve educational outcomes, realign school curricula with job market needs and facilitate students’ access to the job market. It covers areas such as the reorganisation of the school system, the orientation system, the recruitment and career of teachers, vocational-oriented tertiary education and university scholarships.
Following a targeted revision of the plan in May 2024, the milestones and targets attached to the fifth payment request were increased to 54. This is thanks to a faster-than-expected implementation by Italy of two targets, which were originally planned to be part of the seventh payment request.

At this stage, the Commission is not in a position to conclude on the assessment of one target (M1C1-85), which concerns the reform of the public procurement framework. This target foresees a 10% reduction in the average time between the award of a contract and the delivery of infrastructure works. It has emerged that the wording of the Council Implementing Decision approving the Italian recovery and resilience plan does not provide sufficient clarity on the methodology to apply for the assessment of the satisfactory fulfilment of this target, which the Commission has valued at €110 million based on the established methodology. Given the need for additional clarification of the target, Italy intends to submit a reasoned request to amend it, ensuring that the ambition and policy objective of the measure is maintained.

Next steps

The Commission has now sent its positive preliminary assessment of the milestones and targets that it considers to be satisfactorily fulfilled to the Economic and Financial Committee, which now has four weeks to deliver its opinion. This will pave the way for the payment of €11 billion.