NGEU and PNRR: Strengthening European Governance and the Central Administrations of the State

The Next Generation EU and Italy’s PNRR National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Piano nazionale di ripresa e resilienza, PNRR) both implement a process of centralization, each within its respective context. At the European level, this concerns the EU’s functioning mechanisms of the EU, its relationship with Mmember States, and the “”method of governance””; at the national level, it pertains to the centralization of the system and the growing role of the central public administration. The EU has adopted a range of measures that have influenced the governance of resources and structures. This centralization process is characterized by constraints, commitments, obligations, and objectives laid out in acts that, although varying in scope, have created an “”ecosystem”” in which Member Sstates (and their institutions) are influenced in implementing their national recovery plansPNRRs. In Italy, this centralization process has been manifested throughtaken a shape of an expansion of the central administration’s role in financial and managerial matters. The implementation of the PNRR has led to a strengthening of both the role and staffing of the public sector. The PNRR has impacted various structures by assigning a dominant role to the central administration, compared to those at other levels of government. The new EU/Member States governance model, at the European level, and the national centralization process, are closely intertwined. In fact, it is precisely the new continental approach to governance approach that necessitates a high degree of national centralization: this, in order to improve relations with the European level and to simplify the execution of state national activities.