TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN EU POLICIES
The European Union, most recently the Council of the European Union (02.06.2014 COM (2014) 413), have been since long recommending Italy the reform and strengthening of Public Administration as a sine qua non of development policies implemented with Structural Funds.
The Partnership Agreement 2014-2020, recently approved by European Commission, provides, therefore, that total resources of Structural Funds for more than 1 billion euro
will finance the thematic objective 11 "Strengthening
the capacity of the Public Administrations and stakeholders
and promote efficient public administration". 821 million
euro will be allocated in the less developed regions
(Mezzogiorno, in Italy) to support governance interventions
for the benefit of local authorities and public private
partnerships.
An additional 1,397 million euro will be earmarked for
technical assistance to Italian State and Regions
responsible of several operational programs.
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO THE NEW
TERRITORIAL APPROACH IN ITALY
The new EU regulations have profoundly innovated
the approach and the method of application of Structural
Funds: in particular Regulation EU n.1303 of 2013, art. 32
et seq., provides special development tool for Community
Led Local Development or participative local development
instruments. Development actions, partnership-based territorial socio-economic development, will be designed, implemented, managed and monitored through Local Action Groups (LAGs Local Action Groups) constituted by public and private entities of the territory. The GAL will be provided with resources for management and technical assistance, for planning and programming, consulting, animation, monitoring, etc.
The boom of policies of negotiated planning (Territorial Pacts, Area Contracts in Italy etc.) as per Law 662/1996 (art. 2, paragraph 203 etc) was followed, in the early 2000s, by a gradual disappearance of such policies in Italy. Today with the abovementioned Regulation 1303/2013, the European Union impose concerted programming policies in the territories by means of the above said Local Action Groups.
If it is true that, as already seen, many of the resources must be planned and implemented at the local level, however, in the notes sent to Italian Government with reference to the Partnership Agreement Italy 2014-2020, the European Commission, in March 2014, insisted for a "strong Central State control". Many of the programs (National Operational Programs, P.O.N.) will be managed, therefore, at the State level, while the Regional ones, after a strong reduction of resources, will be co-managed with the Italian State in a new governance. Both allow a coordinated vision at the expense of the fragmentation and
inconsistency that has characterized until now the
intervention of Structural funds in Italy.
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO THE PUBLIC-PRIVATE
PARTNERSHIPS
Whereas 59 of Regulation EU 1303/13 states that "Public
Private Partnerships ("PPPs") can be an effective means of
delivering operations which ensure the achievement of
public policy objectives by bringing together different forms
of public and private resources. In order to facilitate the
use of ESI Funds to support operations structured as PPPs
this Regulation should take account of certain
characteristics specific to PPPs by adapting some of the
common provisions on the ESI Funds". So much has meant
that the same Regulation intervene to standardize the
matter (Arts. 62-64) for the best implementation of PPP with
the Structural Funds. Such a prominence recently given to
the matter by European Commission allows more forms of
technical assistance to public authorities and public entities such as a) a public law body initiating the operation; or (b) a body governed by private law of a Member State (the "private partner") selected or to be selected for the implementation of the operation.
By means of such technical assistance to public administrations it will be, therefore, possible encourage planning, financial resources raising on markets and public works realization with project finance.
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS IN ITALY
The Law 56 / 2014 initiated a profound reform, still in progress, of the institutional system of Italian local bodies. This led to the subsequent reform provision of the system of ATO (optimal territorial areas) for public utilities, both in terms of functions as well in terms of geographical area, by means of a new institutional planning (see Article 1, paragraph 147, Law 56/2014). That new planning will not be consistent with the European territorial programming now increasingly directed towards improving the quality of life in urban and agricultural areas and, therefore, the improvement, in first place, of local public services’ supply. With reference to the issue of planning, as well as to the issue of technical assistance in general (consulting, coaching, workshop and lab activities, etc.) provided to local governments as for finding funds and management of such funds as much as in the implementation and enforcement of Public Administration recent reforms (most recently, the Decree Law 90/14) and again on transparency, open government, anti-corruption, etc. it will be possible to access to the financial resources provided by the abovementioned Thematic Objective.
