NextGenerationEU: share of Italy's planned expenditure by policy pillar

Italy is the member state of the European Union which is set to receive the greatest amount of support funds from the NextGenerationEU economic recovery package. Italy was hit particularly hard by the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its northern and central regions having some of the highest densities of coronavirus cases of any region on the continent. The pandemic hit an already struggling Italian economy hard, with the country's GDP shrinking by nine percent in 2020.

The NextGenEU package was designed by the EU to support the economic recovery of the hardest hit member states of the bloc, such as Italy, Spain, and Greece. The funds distributed to the member states are to be invested in programs which aim to grow the European economy in ways that are ecologically sustainable, modern, digital, and socially just. Therefore, member states were require to draw up a national recovery & resilience plan in order to receive funds, with each use of funds being attached to two of the six policy pillars which inform the packages.

In Italy's case, the Green Transition is by far and away the policy pillar which was chosen as the primary pillar most often when deciding how to use the funds. In terms of the secondary focus of programs chosen by Italy, social & territorial cohesion and smart, sustainable, and inclusive economic growth come out on top as the most common policy pillars.