On August 31, 2026, the PNRR (Italian National Recovery and Resilience PlanThe current phase of the program formally comes to an end. By then, Italy will have received approximately €194 billion from Next Generation EU, the European post-pandemic recovery fund, comprising €122,6 billion in loans to be repaid and €71,8 billion in grants. This is one of the largest flows of public resources for the modernization of the country in recent decades.
And yet, the Italian digital transition is not yet complete.
This is the central conclusion of an analysis published by CIO Club Italia, signed by Imma Orilio, Regional Delegate from Sicily and president of the association's editorial committee. The text is direct: "a transition that lasts nine years is no longer a transition, it is the permanent state in which the Italian production system relates to technology."
What Italy achieved
The results exist and are documented. Ultra-broadband coverage has reached almost the entire national territory. Fiber optics have been significantly expanded. 5G covers the vast majority of the population. Electronic Health Record — the unified Italian electronic health record system — has placed Italy fourth in Europe in terms of access to digital medical records, according to European Commission data from 2024.
In the business sector, the country is surprising: 60,7% of small and medium-sized Italian companies have at least one basic level of digitizationItaly ranks fourth in Europe in cloud computing usage, with 55% of companies utilizing the technology—well above the EU average of 38,9%.
What didn't work
But these results cover what the analysis calls the "floor" of digitization—the infrastructure and basic resources. The ceiling, according to Orilio, remains low.
In the use of artificial intelligence by companies, Italy is at 5% — the European average is 7,4% and the goal of the European Digital Agenda for 2030 is 60%. In basic digital skills among the population, the country is at 45,8%, compared to a European average of 55,6%. In information technology specialists in the workforce, the rate is 4,1% — the European target is 6,1%.
The incentive model adopted over nine years — from the Industry 4.0 Plan in 2017 to the current one. iperammortamento (Accelerated over-amortization for technology investments) — is cited as part of the problem. The logic of intermittent incentive programs has created a pattern of wave-based digitization: companies invest when tax benefits are available, stop when they end, and restart in the next cycle. The result is fragmented modernization, lacking strategic continuity.
The Transition 5.0 case
The most illustrative example is the program Transition 5.0The program, launched in 2024 with €6,3 billion, saw its rules change substantially at least five times in two years. Resources were reduced from €6,3 billion to €2,5 billion midway through. More than 7.400 companies that had already started investments were left without coverage. The government cut the benefit, faced criticism, and backtracked. Between March 2025 and April 2026, the expected benefit for companies varied by an order of magnitude.
“An industrial policy system that produces these fluctuations in two or three months cannot function well by definition, regardless of the goodwill of the actors,” Orilio writes.
The cost that nobody mentions.
There is also a rarely cited fact in the public debate: of the €194 billion of PNRR€122,6 billion are loans that Italy will repay between 2028 and 2058. The total interest the country will pay until 2058, according to the most commonly used simulations, is approximately €64 billion. The plan will only be fiscally advantageous if the resulting increase in productivity exceeds this cost. For now, leading productivity indicators do not show the expected leap.
What comes next
The analysis suggests that Italy should stop treating digitalization as an endless “transition” and define clear criteria for when it can be considered complete. With realistic goals and stable policies lasting at least ten years—instead of incentive programs that change every two years—the country could declare this phase over between 2031 and 2034.
For now, the PNRR ends. The transition does not.
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