THE FUTURE AHEAD OF US: THE EDUCATION, INNOVATION, AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY OF ITALY AND SOUTHERN EUROPE—INTERVIEW WITH MARCO DEL PANTA RIDOLFI, THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE
Alessandro D’Onofrio, 4 March 2021 The interview was conducted in Italian and translated by Alessandro D’Onofrio.
The European Union is now entering a new stage of integration. The Next Generation EU (NGEU) represents a historical solution devised to tackle the direst effects of the coronavirus pandemic–related crisis and to create a sort of debt mutualisation on a European level. As a former diplomat and the head of an important educational institution, which current priorities do you think Italy and the other Southern European states should focus on in their NGEU plans? The NGEU represents a historical opportunity for all the EU member states, especially for those countries that suffered the pandemic the 22
INTERVIEWS
most at its early stage. These countries are the southern member states and, in particular, Italy and Spain. This situation, however, also creates a good chance to revise the executives’ priorities because—and I mostly refer to Italy here— intervention and economic policies have so far been based on short-term plans. As we know, this attitude, together with the instability of the Italian political system, could not guarantee the continuity of government action. Therefore, relying on short-term policies means focussing on measures which may have positive effects on the economy merely for a few months or, at most, a few years, not taking, however, long-term growth into consideration. The EU now provides member states with the means to concentrate on long-term policies, which is the only way of maintaining sustainable growth and meeting requirements for the management of high public debt. Only long-term growth can empower a state to manage its large and growing public debt. This is the first time in the EU’s history that its member states have obtained a funding system which could revert the foregoing tendency and favour investing in long-term growth. It is the result of the new EU programme, which showed an incredible willingness to react to the crisis by partially pooling the management of debt instruments. Therefore, we are at a fundamental and historic turning point and, if we are able to seize this opportunity offered by the EU, we have a great chance to stop this
