The Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan: coordination and conditionality

As one of the greatest beneficiaries of the NextGenerationEU (NGEU) recovery package, and given its low past absorption capacity of European Structural and Investment Funds and lacklustre implementation rates of Country-Specific Recommendations within the European Semester, in 2022, Italy is at the centre of the attention of its European partners. What are the chances of success of the Mediterranean country, which has disproportionately suffered from the fallouts of the global financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic? The article tries to assess the odds by looking at the Italian case from two perspectives. First, it evaluates Italy’s past performance in light of the several modifications to the conditionality that underpins the NGEU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility. Second, it elaborates on the implications of the governance structure introduced by Mario Draghi’s government to implement Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The evaluation yields mixed results. Considering...