Paradoxically, the existing deluge of standards in Italy has not freed our country of gaps, delays and obsolescence. There are areas and sectors that are affected by obsessive, overdetailed excessively dirigiste and invasive regulations; but there are also strategic areas in which the regulatory framework seems to be inadequate, inappropriate and dated. In certain sensitive areas, the regulatory apparatus does not seem to be equipped to face the challenges of the future and at the same time ensure the stability required for projects that will long outlast a single term of office of a government to avoid exposing the projects to political wishes that are too variable or also to automatic hostility that may have been caused only by the fact that a project was conceived by a previous government or parliamentary majority.
In particular: data management and cybersecurity regulations have to be rewritten; these are aspects that should ensure non-military growth projects but at the same time be basic platforms for national security. A decisive but not excessively statist and highly planned approach to the reshoring of certain production lines appears to be necessary. It is obvious that the manufacture of a certain product cannot be improvised overnight. Neither can we count on the guarantee having the necessary raw materials available, nor the expertise required for production. Neither can we count on product costs and quality being such as to be market winners. In a free economy, such conditions are not created on the drawing board or through political decisions. The best path for achieving the objective of uncoupling from the Chinese economy and thus achieving reshoring is paradoxically not the path of adopting the highly planned model of authoritarian countries, imagining that it is up to the state to map out every aspect of economy as if the relative decision was only political. Economic liberalism considers that any state should above all lighten the burden of taxes and bureaucracy to build welcoming “airports” that enable businesses and investments to “land” (or “land again”) here, in this part of the world. In other words, reshoring can be promoted with powerful incentives accompanied by equally enticing tax incentives for productive investments and by aggregating processes and of course through a general reduction in taxes.
Golden power regulations need to be constantly adjusted and at the same time what happens in sectors to which these power prerogatives have been or may be applied has to be monitored. For infrastructure innovations, large contracts, and the system of tenders in general: in an institutionally healthy system also and above all routine procedures have to be streamlined. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to continue to normally have a bureaucratic jungle and just one preferential fast track (like the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan for example) in which state institutions can move completely freely (not infrequently by following a completely exceptional regulatory path). Routine simplification is required, i.e. simplified routine that applies to everyone and is not an exception restricted to the public sector in certain specific cases.
Melkart will study and develop proposals to update and overhaul the existing regulatory framework. These proposals are also intended to ensure the stability that is necessary for projects that will long outlast the lifetime of a single government.
