Recovery, resilience, and antifragility: The case of Bologna and its way through the challenges of “territorialising” the Italian National Recovery and resilience plan

The Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) is the most extensive recovery plan in Europe: €191bn and an additional €30bn thanks to the Complementary National Plan (CNP) 2021-2026 offer the country a unique opportunity to recover from the socio-economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, based upon the objectives of Next Generation EU.

Two years after its formulation and approval at the EU level, the plan remains central in the political debate and a highly contested issue.

On the one hand, it is de facto one of the most significant public policies the country has ever adopted. It offers Italy the chance to recover from the effects of an unexpected event like the pandemic, but also from structural problems in terms of both economic development and institutional capacities. It is a programme of modernisation and public works based on some crucial public administration reforms (66 reforms, OpenPolis1 ), as well as on measures (358 measures, OpenPolis, ibidem) due to support the recovery by providing material and immaterial welfare and infrastructures. Regarding significant investments, infrastructure projects received €54.7bn, while ecological transition and jobs and businesses received €33.1bn and €29.9bn, respectively (OpenPolis, ibidem)

On the other hand, the plan has been criticised since its original approval for being quite a risky debt trap for the country (almost two-thirds of the resources are loans2 ) as well as highly centralised in nature and based upon a model and approach to public policy that fails to consider the specificity of the country. For decades, Italy has been characterised by a high institutional fragility, generated by a mix of unaccomplished reforms, continuous reduction of public expenditures and strong disinvestment in the public sphere: all factors which have largely eroded the capacities of the public administration to cope with ordinary issues and make the probability of success challenging in the face of such an extraordinary situation. While the plan aims to address these problems, it has limited capacity due to the limited timeframe within which it has been formulated and the dramatic conditions under which it was designed. The lack of a vision for the country’s future, for one thing, and the limited role of local authorities during its design phase, for another, have been arguments of discussion, particularly in the first year after its approval.