Each country must use the resources placed at its disposal by the European institutions pragmatically, transparently and, above all, efficiently. European funds can never be ‘free of charge’: Europe’s debt is everyone’s debt and Italy will always contribute greatly to the funding of European initiatives, because it is the third largest economy in the EU.
But joint, strong and coordinated action will protect and contribute to relaunching production capacity and employment throughout the European economy. The importance of the Commission’s recent proposal is not in grants substituting loans, but that there will be collective responsibility for funding the recovery: this would be the first step towards fiscal union and the completion of the European project.