Successive governments in Rome have presented the RRF cash as the key to unlocking the country's growth potential and modernising its sluggish economy, yet the Commission report projected a smaller impact than Italy's own estimates.
According to Brussels' "mid-term evaluation" of the RRF, under a best case scenario Italian gross domestic product in 2026 will be just over 2.5 percentage points higher than it would have been without the EU transfers.
That compares with a growth boost of roughly 3.5 points for Spain, which receives only a slightly higher amount of cash in terms of GDP, and almost 4.5 points for Greece.
Italy's latest official estimates had pencilled in a cumulative GDP increase of 3.4 points by 2026.
Apart from Greece and Spain, Italy's growth boost is projected to be less than those of Portugal, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania.
Even before the RRF, Italy had a chronic problem in spending EU cash in the form of structural funds for its poorer regions, and it is still struggling to put the latest windfall to good use.
It has so far allocated just over 40 billion euros, less than half of the 102 billion euros of RRF transfers secured, according to the government's data base known as Regis, and economists and think-tanks lament a lack of transparency regarding what the money is actually being spent on.
Despite the huge inflows of EU cash, the Italian economy has stagnated on average over the last three quarters, with GDP shrinking 0.3% in the second quarter of last year and rising 0.1% in the third quarter and 0.2% in the fourth.
