Der er tale om forskellige faktorer, og jeg vil kun nævne de væsentligste, nemlig naturligvis først og fremmest den manglende politiske stabilitet i landet her i de seneste år; man behøver blot at betænke, at vi har haft over 50 regeringer i løbet af de 50 år efter krigen. De administrative strukturer er skrøbelige både på centralt og regionalt plan, og der hersker en vis mangel på evne inden for programlægning og iværksættelse af selve programmerne.
Various factors are involved, of which I shall mention only the most significant: first and foremost, obviously, the political instability that has marked the country over these past years - sufficient to say that Italy has had more than fifty governments in the fifty years since the Second World War; the fragile nature of Italy's administrative structures, both at central and, particularly, at regional level, and a certain inability to plan and implement programmes; a proliferation of decision-making centres, caused not least by the fact that, when regional government was introduced in Italy, no real provision was made for the distribution of powers and responsibilities, which has led to an overlapping of decisionmaking powers; the proliferation of sometimes contradictory legislation, with long-winded and highly complex bureaucratic procedures; the lack of coordination between Community structures and Italian central and regional structures, which has resulted in long delays in passing on information and often, I have to say, in a lack of transparency of that information; and, finally, the accumulated delay in the use of resources for the period 1989-1993 - in this respect, it is worth mentioning the possibility, offered by the agreement that Commissioner Wulf-Mathies reached with former Minister Masera, of extending to the end of 1997 the deadline for the use of funds that should have been used by the end of 1996.