by Massimo Balducci
The amount of resources to be mobilised by the EU Resilience and Recovery Fund (and connected funds) is huge. It is comparable with the amount of resources triggered off by the Marshall Plan after World War II. Compared with the GDP in some countries, the EU will invest more resources than the Marshall Plan did. In the case of Italy, the Marshall Plan invested about 12% of the Italian GDP. The EU will invest around 19% of the Italian GDP in Italy. Will the EU investment have an impact comparable with the one of the Marshall Plan? Or will it mostly be a positive impact and have negative unanticipated consequences that outweighs any positive outcome? Compliance shall possibly be called upon to play a key role to curb any negative unintended outcome. Here, the experience of the Marshall Plan can provide us with a useful frame of reference. A negative (i.e. what should be done differently in comparison to the Marshall Plan) point of reference and a positive one (i.e. what the EU should try to do following the Marshall Plan). Continue reading…