Italian National Recovery and Resilience Facility – monitoring gender impact: open data and conditionality

Subject: Italian National Recovery and Resilience Facility – monitoring gender impact: open data and conditionality

The Italian Government is about to propose a revision of its national recovery and resilience plan (NRRP). Considering the country’s worsening performance on gender equality and its being ranked last in the EU for women’s employment, it is crucial that the NRRP include the monitoring, improvement and enforcement of gender conditionality and gender-related performance objectives.

Italian NRRP funds dedicated to gender equality are limited to 1.6 % and indirect measures cover 18.5 %. Gender mainstreaming is absent from 77.9 % of the fund. According to Period Think Thank and EquALL in the European Parliament, 96 % of NRRP-related tenders did not envisage any gender-related reward and 68 % did not apply gender procurement (30 % quota – Law Decree 77/2021 Art. 47 ). Only very limited data on tenders, tenderers, and project implementation are available to the public and they are published with significant delays.

1. How can the Commission ensure that the Italian Government make NRRP implementation data available to the public for independent monitoring purposes, particularly in the case of gender- disaggregated data?

2. Can the Commission provide concrete guidance on how to monitor the gender impacts of non- targeted measures beyond the indicators and scores adopted by Delegated Regulations 2021/21051 and 2021/21062, and request the collection of gender-disaggregated data on all of the 14 indicators?

3. Can the Commission require that gender procurement principles are not systematically derogated by Italian tendering authorities?

Supporter3

Submitted:6.7.2023

1 OJ L 429, 1.12.2021, p. 79.

2 OJ L 429, 1.12.2021, p. 83.

3 This question is supported by a Member other than the authors:Rosa D'Amato(Verts/ALE)

Answer given by Mr Gentiloni on behalf of the European Commission

(19 September 2023)

According to Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2105 (4), the Commission, in consultation with the Member States, identifies measures with a focus on gender equality in the endorsed national Recovery and Resilience plans (RRP) and publishes such information in the Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard.

The Commission considers that 3.83% of the measures contained in the Italian RRP focus on gender equality.

Italy is expected to provide data disaggregated by gender in the framework of the bi-annual reporting, in line with Delegated Regulation EU 2021/2106 (5).

Member States report disaggregated common indicators on: researchers working in supported research facilities, participants in education or training, people in employment or engaged in job searching activities and young people aged 15-29 receiving support.

The Commission stands ready to support all Member States to comply with their reporting obligations. However, it cannot request the collection and publication of gender-disaggregated data which are not envisaged by the RRF Regulation and the relevant Delegated Regulations.

Among the measures focusing on gender equality in the Italian RRP, it is worth stressing that the new gender equality certification also affects public procurement procedures by introducing rewards for certified firms.

In addition, the Italian authorities have set up national rules applying to tenders related to the RRP which are not part of the formal requirements for the implementation of the RRP.

1 ∙ ⸱ OJ L 429, 1.12.2021, p. 79.

2 ∙ ⸱ OJ L 429, 1.12.2021, p. 83.

3 ∙ ⸱ This question is supported by a Member other than the authors:Rosa D'Amato(Verts/ALE)

4 ∙ ⸱ Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2105 of 28 September 2021 supplementing Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and of the Council

establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility by defining a methodology for reporting social expenditure, OJ L 429, 1.12.2021, p. 79-82. 5 ∙ ⸱ Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2106 of 28 September 2021 on supplementing Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and of the

Council establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility by setting out the common indicators and the detailed elements of the recovery and resilience scoreboard, OJ L 429, 1.12.2021, p. 83-91.










| | )While the Commission values the additional potential for gender equality that the national tendering rules could have, it is not in its remit to assess them or their implementation, including derogations, as this is fully under the responsibility of the Member State.