Italy has completed all 576 targets in its National Recovery and Resilience Plan, putting the country in line to receive a final payment worth €28.4bn from the European Commission by year's end.
Tommaso Foti, Italy's Minister for European Affairs, the PNRR and Cohesion Policies, confirmed the milestone following a steering committee meeting in Rome. The government expects to submit its formal payment request to Brussels by the end of September, with the government expecting the disbursement by year's end, pending European Commission certification.
What Italy has secured
The tenth and final instalment completes the programme on schedule. In total, Italy will have drawn down €194.4bn in EU funds — the largest allocation granted to any member state under the Next Generation EU recovery mechanism.
Foti characterized the outcome as a structural achievement for the country, noting that spending had surpassed €133bn when financial instruments are excluded. "With the tenth instalment," he said, "we have delivered interventions in healthcare, infrastructure, ecological transition, education, digitalisation, culture, employment and social inclusion."
The minister thanked the PNRR Mission Structure, cabinet chiefs and mission units across ministries for their work.
What the targets delivered
The final batch of 156 milestones includes tangible outcomes set to be felt by residents across the country:
• More than 1,270 Community Houses and 327 Community Hospitals activated, alongside 6,000 new intensive and semi-intensive care beds.
• Over 566,000 people assisted through telemedicine services.
• Some 153,000 new places created in nurseries and nursery schools, with 176 schools rebuilt.
• More than 60,000 university housing places financed.
• 5G coverage extended across 23,000 kilometres of territory.
• Over 12,000 public institutions migrated to secure cloud infrastructure.
• In excess of 3,200 zero-emission buses registered.
The verification process
The steering committee, convened at Palazzo Chigi and attended by ministers, undersecretaries and representatives from ANCI, UPI and the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces, verified the targets against the government's eighth implementation report.
Italy's Central Service for the PNRR — based within the General Accounting Department of the Ministry of Economy and Finance — acts as the liaison with Brussels for coordination, monitoring and reporting. Each administering authority operates its own Mission Unit to manage measures and submit documentation.
The European Commission must still certify the results before releasing funds. Foti noted that 680,000 of 690,000 financed procedures have already concluded, placing Italy "perfectly in line" with expectations.
A European comparison
Italy received 38.2% of the entire EU Recovery and Resilience Facility allocation. Spain, the next-largest beneficiary, has drawn roughly €78bn across six payments and is pursuing a seventh. France had completed over 80% of its milestones by April.
Early in the programme, both France and Spain appeared to be moving faster than Italy on intermediate targets. By September 2026, Italy has caught up and met every goal.
Questions from auditors
While the overall timeline has been met, Italy's Court of Auditors has flagged persistent implementation delays in certain sectors. Environmental and infrastructure projects continue to show the greatest strain, particularly those requiring complex procedures.
Auditors warned that some sustainable mobility works risk non-completion. They also noted a gap between procedural and financial progress: as of the most recent monitoring, 58% of interventions were still ongoing.
The court expressed concern about whether local authorities have the staff and budget to maintain the projects once EU funding ends. It also critiqued the government's decision to extend a so-called "budgetary shield" — a measure limiting the jurisdiction of accounting magistrates over PNRR matters.
Independent observers have pointed out that the more significant challenge is translating allocated funds into actual expenditure. Digital transformation targets, while formally met, may mask fragmentation and skills gaps in public administration, according to the Digital Agenda Observatory at Politecnico di Milano.
What happens next
Once the European Commission approves the final payment, Italy's focus shifts to sustaining the investments. The plan will continue to produce effects in coming years, but oversight bodies are now watching whether the administrative capacity built during the pandemic recovery can be retained.
