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The Italian Minister of Technological Innovation and Digital Transition has promised to simplify administrative procedures by accelerating the deployment of a national digital platform for citizens, as part of a € 248 billion recovery plan designed to revive the third economy of the eurozone.
Vittorio Colao, former chief executive of Vodafone, said the online portal will allow Italians to do everything from paying taxes to reserving vaccines and simplifying the overlapping of regional and national state competencies.
It acted as a catalyst for the renewal of the economy affected by the pandemic led by Prime Minister Mario Draghi, he added.
“If I had to say why Italy exists today, it is because of the legal and administrative complexity that, as a government, we are determined to simplify,” he told the Financial Times.
He added: “This is the time to do it. It hasn’t happened in the past because the urgency was probably not felt or the resistance was probably strong. Covid’s sad story is that not only has life taken over, it has affected the economy in many important ways. Now the feeling of urgency and need is higher.
Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, was commissioned by the Italian president earlier this year to form a government of national unity after the collapse of his last coalition. Colao was the top executive of the British telecommunications group Vodafone between 2008 and 2018 and, until becoming minister, lived in London. Political novice, he is one of several business experts appointed by Draghi.
He said he was determined to extend the use of the administration’s existing online portal to the entire population before upgrading it to “a notification platform that includes from fines, taxes, court orders and vaccinations”.
“It sounds like science fiction, but it’s not. Today we already have 20 million people on this platform, ”he said.
About a third of Italians have signed up for the existing platform, called Spid. Colao said that in the first quarter of this year, the digital service had processed 120 million transactions, up from 143 million for the whole of 2020.
Colao said increasing the amount of digital interaction Italians had with the state through the website would facilitate government plans to invest in digital education and skills.
The use of online services in Italy is one of the lowest in the EU. Only 38% of Italians aged 16 to 74 bought goods and services online in 2019, the third lowest share in the EU, as do Bulgaria and Romania, according to Eurostat.
Half of Italians between the ages of 16 and 74 used a laptop or handheld device to access the Internet outside of work or home in 2019, compared to 73% of all Europeans on average.
The size of the EU-backed investment package is “great,” Colao said, “but the real core of our plan is reforms and investing in people. Now Italy wants to invest in its own people and talent, and improve opportunities for those who are here.
He added: “You have to invest in the whole conveyor belt, from kindergarten to doctoral research. This country has been very erratic in the past and it is not an area where you can be erratic. You have to be systematic because the production cycle of intellectual innovation is 15 to 30 years ”.
Colao said such efforts would help the country create conditions to stop the exodus of talent abroad and attract foreign investors.
“The two things foreign investors in Italy always say are: we can’t find the right people and the system is horrible,” he said. “Am I one hundred percent sure we will get all this? Well, we have to be ambitious. We may be missing some parts, but if we reach 90%, that would put Italy at the forefront of the race.
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