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Germany and Eastern Europe, for example, are suffering from the effects of the abandonment of coal and fossil fuels, the re-transformation of “brown” and highly energy-intensive industries and unknown consequences for costs and competitiveness. Interventions to mitigate polluting production in agriculture and industry have had a significant impact on production in Spain, France and Italy, with consequences for financially and market-vulnerable companies. We are talking about transition and developed regions, whose adaptation to environmental challenges depends on investment decisions of the private sector and the uncertain evolution of the global economy. But demographic challenges and globalization also need to be taken into account, as they mainly affect Southern Europe, Spain and Italy (especially Basilicata, Sicily, Abruzzo and Tuscany), as well as Eastern Europe. Ismaili’s research shows that the impacts of the green transition are combined with those of demographics and globalization, and they reinforce each other.
How do green transition and demography reinforce each other?
This transformation could open a window of opportunity for less developed regions to attract production using green territories and clean energy, provided they invest resources in infrastructure and services to make them attractive and convenient, pursuing an “offensive” competitive strategy for territories, which does not yet appear in the EU plan for 2021-2027, but we must work towards it. Or, on the contrary, it could weaken those regions where the problems of an aging and declining workforce are more evident, where there is an imbalance between the skills needed and offered by the market, and where there is a lack of specialized talent necessary for the green transformation. The transformation will not be a linear process as shown in the plan, but will be full of uncertainties, obstacles and waste, and will generate not only green changes, but also changes in production and territorial specialization, which must be accompanied by more targeted and effective measures. Broad social and labor policies.
Are more resources needed to adjust welfare levels within the EU?
The EU is committing resources in an unprecedented way, as the Agricultural Fund and the PNRR are added to the Cohesion Fund, with the common goal of combating the double transition. Between 2022 and 2027, spending is expected to be around 825 billion euros for the 28 countries; around 280 billion for Italy alone. Most of the managers of the beneficiary countries believe that the available ordinary and extraordinary resources even exceed the absorptive capacity, as they are not backed by adequate planning. The point is therefore not the volume of resources, but the ability to launch coherent and integrated interventions, which would be difficult to implement with funds operating independently. After years of “laissez-faire”, there is a need for a European industrial policy to guide the adaptation policies of the private sector and the regions, especially on some fundamental choices in the fields of energy and technology, including the lack of absorptive capacity for R&D resources in the regions that need them most.
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