EditCohesion funds: Italy’s real bottleneck is administrative capacity, not rules
Without a stronger administrative backbone, Italy risks once again falling short in turning EU resources into tangible outcomes
Italy’s long-standing difficulty in turning EU cohesion funds into concrete projects is less about complex rules and more about administrative capacity, staffing and institutional organisation. This is the key takeaway from the webinar “How to relaunch administrative capacity? The real drag on cohesion”, organised by EUalive’s partner Focus Europe, featuring Matteo Luigi Bianchi, vice-president of the European Committee of the Regions, and Marco Leonardi, professor at the University of Milan and former head of economic planning at Palazzo Chigi under Mario Draghi.
A structural weakness that cuts across all levels of government, but is most visible on the ground.
Fragile territories, slow delivery
From a local government perspective, the first issue is timing. “Cohesion funds have a rather long spending and implementation cycle,” Bianchi said, stressing that while EU funding remains a “qualifying and important opportunity”, translating it into projects remains difficult.
The causes are layered. On the one hand, “something gets stuck in the process involving regional authorities, also due to bureaucracy”. On the other, a deeper structural weakness emerges: “in smaller municipalities there is a lack of trained and sufficient staff to undertake project design”.
This shifts the problem from procedures to capacity. It is not just about complex rules, but about whether administrations are able to design, apply for and manage projects in the first place.
Fragmentation and lack of scale
The small size of many Italian municipalities becomes a decisive constraint. Without sufficient scale, local administrations struggle to cope with increasingly complex EU programmes.
This is why Bianchi stresses the need for cooperation: “local authorities, to be effective, must come together”. Otherwise, he warns, “they will not be able to seize the opportunities that Europe offers”, leaving entire territories behind.
The issue is not only administrative but political, raising broader questions about institutional architecture and intermediate levels of coordination.
The real bottleneck: human capital
From an economic perspective, the diagnosis is even more direct. “Personnel and training of personnel” are, according to Leonardi, the main structural weakness behind Italy’s limited administrative capacity.
The issue is closely linked to scale: “many municipalities are too small to handle complex procurement procedures”. This is driving a shift towards concentrating expertise through the qualification of contracting authorities, aiming to strengthen technical capacity and reduce fragmentation.
Yet even this solution risks falling short without deeper reforms in recruitment.
A public sector losing appeal
The problem is also one of attractiveness. Public administration is struggling to recruit qualified profiles, particularly among younger generations.
Bianchi illustrates this with a stark example: “in 2009, 100 candidates applied for a public competition; today, five”. A sign of a broader shift: “the model of public employment is no longer attractive”.
Leonardi points to the economic drivers: “public sector salaries are much lower compared to the private sector”, while demographic decline further reduces the pool of applicants. The result is a double deficit: fewer candidates and fewer incentives for the most qualified ones.
Even when recruitment succeeds, retention remains an issue, with many new hires quickly moving on to better opportunities.
PNRR: a shift towards performance
Against this backdrop, the experience of the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) represents, for Leonardi, a turning point. The move towards a performance-based system – with clear milestones and regular monitoring – has marked a break from traditional cohesion policy, where controls often come years later.
“A system guided by performance” appears more effective, he argued, and is likely to shape future EU programmes.
The centralisation dilemma
However, the PNRR model also raises political concerns. Bianchi warned against excessive centralisation: “if the direct relationship between the Commission and regions disappears, we are not moving towards deeper European integration”.
Instead, he cautioned, such a shift risks “undermining the principle of subsidiarity and the bottom-up approach” that has traditionally underpinned cohesion policy.
Execution gap: real constraints, not just rules
On the so-called execution gap, Leonardi was clear: “the difficulties are not procedural, they are real”.
Despite multiple rounds of simplification, implementation still faces concrete obstacles: overly ambitious initial targets, external shocks such as inflation, and – once again – staff shortages.
In other words, the issue is less about the “code” and more about the capacity to execute it.
What needs to change
Looking ahead, priorities converge. “We need people,” Leonardi stressed, pointing to recruitment, training and the concentration of expertise as the most urgent interventions.
Bianchi adds a territorial dimension: without stronger cooperation among municipalities and a rethink of governance structures, “the overall level will decline” and opportunities will remain unused.
The challenge, then, is not only to spend more, but to spend effectively. Without a stronger administrative backbone, Italy risks once again falling short in turning EU resources into tangible outcomes in the next programming cycle.
The original article in Italian can be found here.
Caption: AI-generated illustrative image.
Updated: April 2, 2026 - 06:33
