Based on the Partnership Agreement between the Italian government and the European Commission, the end of 2018 represented the first real deadline for the verification of the annual certified expenditure targets initially set for the Italian Operational Programs and referred to the EU cohesion policy for the period 2014-2020. Therefore, this study simply aims to verify whether and to what extent the spending objectives set for the over 50 Italian programs have actually been achieved.
The comparative analysis at EU member states’ level reveals a not entirely satisfactory picture for our country, regardless of the overall amount of resources allocated.
At the national level, on the other hand, with reference only to the Italian, national (PON) and regional (POR) programs, the results emerged appear somewhat heterogeneous, also due to the high number of programs managed by public administrations, in charge of resources’ management.
The most interesting element that has been verified is the confirmation that Italy has once again achieved its targets thanks to an intensification of the administrative activity carried out in the last available period and, sometimes, losing quality in funded projects, despite the socio-economic development process that should be achieved thanks to the use of this considerable amount of financial resources.