The national recovery and resilience plan is still an unrepeatable opportunity to relaunch the entire country system, after the very serious economic situation that had been created, especially in Italy, after the Covid emergency: collapse of the gross domestic product, generalized unemployment for long periods, and economic support interventions by the State (in addition to the exquisitely healthcare costs), which In just one year they had made the public debt of 20 percentage points rise: from 134.2% in 2019 to 154.2% in 2020. In fact, in 2023 the data dropped to 134.6% – basically at the 2019 level, pre -Covid: which already constitutes a good result, overall. In any case, already on July 21, 2020, in the face of the health crisis and generalized economic paralysis that all European countries were facing, the European Council resolved the Next Generation EUas an ambitious tool of support and relaunching the economies of the various countries. On April 30, 2021 the various national recovery and resilience plans were then presented, modulated on the impact of the pandemic in each country, and articulated on the time horizon 2021-2026 (naturally in a differentiated way for each objective/line of activity). Italy thus became the beneficiary nation of the greater amount of resources: out of a European total of about 806 billion euros (in December 2021) for Italy there was talk of 210 billion from the PNRR plus another 80 from the European programming 2021-2027 ( Figures then modified several times, also significantly), of which most of which to be returned, and a “lost -end” part. In recent years the PNRR and its methods of employment have been the subject of fierce political clashes, but certainly, especially for our country, it is an extraordinary (perhaps unique) injection of resources in order to program sector reforms, large public works , investment plans and interventions to reduce inequalities. It should be remembered two main structural characteristics of these funds, before devoting specific attention to the theme of nursery schools.
Firstfor the first time the European Union has substantially developed one structural line of truly subsidiary public economic policy, Returning wide ownership, autonomy and freedom of action to individual governments. In other words, instead of redefining priority, objectives and operating methods at an analytical level, to be imposed in individual countries in a uniform way, the national plans were the expression of the autonomous political-administrative planning of national governments, which were able to benefit from the synergies and funding of the European Union. The greatest or lesser success of the various PNRRs can also become a strategic-political indication on the future model of Europe: less centralist and bureaucratically homogenizing, and more capable of enhancing and promoting the differences between countries, even within a unitary orientation .
Secondly, and to harmoniously counterbalance the risks of differentiation and self -referentiality of individual countries, The disbursement of economic resources was subject to a punctual and rigorous reconnaissance of the objectives achieved, In order not to provide resources with a lost and without real effectiveness, but to guarantee, in each country and for all of Europe, the real pursuit of the declared objectives. They are the famous tranches provided by the European Union to each country in the face of documented relationships on the degree of pursuit of the dozens of objectives explicit within the “missions” (six knots for the Italian PNRR: digitization, innovation, competitiveness and culture; green revolution and ecological transition; Infrastructure for sustainable mobility; education and research; inclusion and cohesion; Health). It was therefore essential to build reliable and analytical monitoring, reporting and communication systems with respect to the real pursuit of the objectives explicit in the plans presented to the European Union. The realistic possibility of modifying plans and objectives was also decisive, in the face of the various possible difficulties encountered: bureaucratic delays but also in the operational phase, difficulty in design, increases in costs, difficulty of concertation between the levels of the public administration, but Also unexpected factors – such as the violent growth in energy costs followed by the war in Ukraine, or the overall increase in costs in construction following the superbonus 110%. In any case, for each country there is a general plan, which can reasonably be modified, and which can also be followed with a certain transparency (albeit with many limits), thanks to a very dense reporting, targeted on the individual objectives and with a good degree of accessibility on various institutional and non -institutional sites.
In this general scenario, the events relating to the investment planned on nursery schools (0-3 years) and school for childhood (4-5 years, before the compulsory school), certainly strategic social infrastructure in each Organic design of enhancing the support and promotion policies of the family, and which has covered transversal functions potentially of great importance on different objectives/missions of the PNRR, from the improvement of the offer of services up to the issue of family-work conciliation and support all occupation, with particular attention to female work and gender equality, and above all as a policy of combating the demographic imbalances generated by the constant decrease in births in our country.
In particular on January 15th The Parliamentary Budget Office (UPB) has published a new Focus on the state of implementation of projects for the strengthening of the offer of nursery schools and kindergartensevaluating their contribution to achieving the expected objectives both in the PNRR (realization of 150,480 new places) and in the structural plan of budget 2023-2027 PSB), addressed, for the 0-3 year band, to the coverage of 33 percent of the Posts available on a national basis (first objective at European level), with at least 15 percent on a regional basis, to promote greater homogeneity in the geographical distribution, which today sees large areas of the territory (not only in the South) heavily undersized. It should be noted that the 150,480 new overall places are the outcome of a strong downsizing (already approved by the European Union) compared to the objectives of the very first version of the PNRR Italia, which had been originally set on the figure of 264,480 new places. Today the overall loan is 4.57 billion, 3.24 from the PNRR and the rest from national funds. (given by the Regis platform, to 9 December 2024). However, the various critical issues emerged in the course of these first years are interesting than the objective (more places in nursery schools).
The first criticality concerns the adhesion of local authorities. Since the early stages of the PNRR, difficulties have been found, in particular for the segment reserved for nursery schools. The adhesion by the Municipalities, especially those of the South and with serious structural deficiencies, was limited and more procedures for assignment of funds were needed to exhaust all available resources. These difficulties affect the progress of the 3,199 projects registered in regis. Therefore, uncertainties on the achievement of the PNRR objective both in quantitative terms (create 150,480 new overall places) and temporal (by June 2026) remain.
A second criticality concerns the coverage of management costs (estimated at an average value 7,560 euros per year), once the new places are made, which would fall on the municipal administrations, and which has been included in the projects in question, but in non -decisive percentages. Therefore, many municipalities would have expressed a certain “resistance” to propose projects on nursery schools because they are worried about their management costs in the medium and long term, difficult to sustain for municipal budgets, and which would force local authorities to ask users very relevant shares of sharing to the costs of the service.
Thus, a little paradoxically (but also understandably), the planning of local authorities has been greater in the territories already widely equipped, and less present in the areas of the country where there are fewer places in nursery schools (also in individual medium-large cities, not only in small towns). To counteract this paradoxical effect of “increase in territorial inequalities”, after a first phase of collection of projects freely promoted by local authorities (a more subsidiary dynamic, from the bottom up, Bottom-Top), the government was forced to promote and build rankings managed by the Center (programming created by the Center and suffered by the territory, Top-Bottom), to be able to allocate more unguarded territories more resources/and increase in a targeted way the offer of places in nursery schools.
Also, as reported by the report of the Parliamentary Budget Office, “Overall, the full realization of the PNRR interventions on nursery schools would reduce the gaps between the southern regions and those of the center-north but, despite the change of strategy in the assignment of the funds, the inequalities in the offer of these public services would increase all internal of the regions themselves. Even after the interventions of the PNRR, almost all of the municipalities with less than 500 inhabitants (96.6%) would remain without these structures and, more generally, 81.4% of the territories that had no asylum would continue not to Having it. And even if as the demographic dimension grows, it improves the coverage of the service, some large municipalities would remain with an inadequate offer compared to the users of users “.
In summary: in the coming years, If the PNRR maintains its promises, the equipment of places in kindergartens will be better, more distributed in the territory is closer to the European objectives (In the meantime, 33% went to 45% m to be pursued by 2030). So family support policies and raising to birth could count on a better resource. However, even in this case it will be essential to stabilize and consolidate the new system, in order not to make the PNRR the umpteenth “one -off” (although of gigantic dimensions).
