The government in Rome is determined not to lose any money from the European Union’s recovery and resilience fund after the Covid-19 pandemic, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Maloni announced on Monday, Reuters and Agerpres news agencies reported.

Italy is set to receive a total of around €200 billion in grants and soft loans by 2026 as part of its post-Covid-19 recovery measures, making it the largest recipient of the EU scheme in absolute terms.

However, Italy is far from the targets agreed with the European Commission, both in terms of the targets to be achieved in order to be able to receive the relevant funds, and in terms of spending the funds already received.

“I am not worried about delays (related to the recovery fund), we are working a lot in this regard. I am not considering the possibility of losing funds,” said Maloney at an event organized in the city of Verona.

Frozen piece

Earlier, Riccardo Molinari, leader of the League party group in the Chamber of Deputies, told the news site Affari Italiani that Italy could no longer receive some EU funds due to irregularities in their spending.

The European Commission has frozen a tranche of 19 billion euros for Italy, demanding clarification on the efforts of the authorities in Rome to fulfill the terms agreed with Brussels.

Ratings agency Scope Ratings told Reuters that significant delays in Italy’s efforts to meet the goals of the recovery and resilience plan are likely to reduce the medium-term growth outlook with a negative impact on the credit rating (the assessment of credit rating agencies or the debt rating of various companies, governments or individuals, depending from their credit quality, which measures the probability that these loans will not be repaid).