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Former Italian Minister, Paolo Costa, shares an overview of some game-changing projects for strategic planning beyond the five years of the NRRP
The principle has to be “Build Back Better”. If we were to use the funds made available by Europe for the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) to rebuild the Italian economy the way it was before the pandemic, it would be a disaster. We have to build better than before, and begin by thinking on how infrastructure can respond to the needs of today and tomorrow, not yesterday’s. I do not think the NRRP goes quite so far.” Paolo Costa, economist, former mayor of Venice, former president of the Vence Port Authority, was Minister of Public Works in the Prodi government and now, as member of the European Parliament, President of the Transportation and Toursim Commission. The idea of infrastructure as enabler of development has always been on his mind and he has a seasoned eye for the unwritten dynamics of what Europe says and what Italy does.
Question. Let’s set aside the 1,800 pages of the NRRP. Can we sum up in ten lines what infrastructure is needed today to build Italy back better? Answer. First, we have to conceive infrstructure policy that puts our enterprises in the condition to reach international markets. This means a small number of efficient seaports and airports connected into global logistics chains. Second, shape geographical development in a way that makes our country attractive for the knowledge and innovation economy, a post-industrial economy. And this means having 4-5 metropolitan hubs with evolved services interconnected by high-speed rail, an environment conducive to the growth of an ecosystem adapted to this new economy. We must prioritize “economic” infrastructure—digital, energy, water, waste, transportation—and thus game-changing projects, those that can usher in a growth paradigm shift. These projects almost all have implementation times that put them out the 2021-2026 window of the NRRP, which must thus just be considered a first essential step in building back better towards GDP of 2%. The natural arc of these policies take them to 2030 and 2050 and the deadlines in European infrastructure policies.
Q. Of more than 31 billion in available funds, Mission no. 3 of the PNRR allocates 24.7 to domestic rail. Is that what we need? A. As soon as you say railroad people thank you are talking green. Given the way the European Commission has shaped the theme of ecological transition, this signal by the Italian document is perhaps a way of “passing muster” in order to obtain funds. As to whether the Salerno–Reggio Calabria high-speed rail helps the strategic development I was talking about before, and especially whether it is a work that can be completed within the 5-year Recovery Plan window, that is something to be seen… Sticking to the topic of rail, infrastructure that would certainly help the market—even though we’re talking about the domestic market—is the Adriatic-Tyrrhenian connections (Rome-Pescara, Orte-Falconara, and Salerno-Taranto, all in the planning phase, to which a useful addition would be a Reggio Calabria–Bari) and a stable connection between Sicily and the southern Italian mainland, which would open a pool of 8 million people to the Sicilian market, and a market of 4 million Sicilians to the enterprises of the South. But we go on talking about the domestic economy, which is stalled or slipping back. We need infrastructure that will take us into the world.
Q. Where do we begin? A. The route is already laid out and has been on European maps for some time. I am referring to the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) with its four central corridors touching Italy: the Scandinavia-Mediterranean, the Mediterranean, the Rhine-Alps, and the Adriatic-Baltic. It has marked out the ports, passes, and urban nodes in a Metropolitan European Growth Area (MEGA) that are destined to play a leading role in European geographical development.
Q. You have an active role in port policy. How much of our country’s need for openness to the world still travels by sea? A. Italy is behind on upgrading the technology and capacity of its ports: none of them are able to be the final destination for Suezmax mega-ships or to handle the logistics of their enormous cargoes. This is progressively excluding us from the North America–Europe and Asia–Europe ocean routes preferred by global value chains. In spite of the increasingly important role played by the Mediterranean, Genoa and Trieste are not able, on their own, to compete with Greece and Spain. If we want to tap the oceanic routes, we have to start imagining two multi-ports, one in the northern Tyrrhenian (between Savona and Livorno, Mediterranean maritime root of the TEN-T Rhine-Alps and Scandinavia-Mediterranean Corridors) and one in the upper Adriatic (between Ravenna and Trieste or perhaps as far as Koper or Rijeka) that hooks into the TEN-T Adriatic-Baltic Corridor. Two such multi-ports would offer adequate production capacity to overcome the competition both with North Sea ports and from Greek and Spanish ports.
