The National Operational Programme “Networks and Mobility” 2007-2013: Organization, Instruments and Targets

This work intends to carry out an analysis of the workings – from the viewpoint of the tools being used and the targets being achieved – of the National Operational Programme “Networks and Mobility”. This was approved for Italy with Decision C(2007) 6318 of 7 December 2007 by the European Commission under the Convergence objective for the 2007-2013 period of the European Cohesion Policy. The Operational Programme (OP) “Networks and Mobility” is actually a “sectoral” OP since it concerns the development and enhancement of a specific sector of Southern Italian socio-economic context, i.e. the infrastructure and transport framework.
As a matter of fact, the OP applies to the four Southern Italian regions eligible for the Convergence objective under the Cohesion Policy 2007-2013, i.e. Apulia, Calabria, Campania and Sicily. The Italian National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF), which represents the document defining the strategy chosen by the Member State through a list of operational programmes to be implemented, sets out the OP’s goal.
The OP undertakes to convert the current disadvantage of Southern Italian regions included into the Convergence objective, characterized by their isolated geographic location and poor infrastructural connections at national and EU level, into a strategic advantage, by improving the accessibility to and from these regions, supporting Trans-European Networks’ (TEN) links – particularly Corridor 1 (Berlin-Palermo) and Corridor 21 (Motorways of the Sea) – and managing logistic flows between EU and non-EU countries. In a nutshell, the global objective of the OP consists in contributing to the creation of a logistic platform acting as EU’s bridgehead towards other continents such as Africa and Asia.