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Italy struggling to speed up post-COVID fund spending

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Rome could revise down goals set for fibre rollout

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Italy lags behind EU in ultra-fast internet coverage

By Elvira Pollina and Giuseppe Fonte

MILAN/ROME, April 8 (Reuters) - KKR-backed fibre

optic telecoms firm FiberCop has told the Italian government it

is ready to take over the work assigned to rival Open Fiber to

speed up a European Union-funded fibre network rollout plan, a

letter seen by Reuters showed.

The request highlights the difficulties Italy faces in

accelerating spending of EU COVID-19 recovery funds, with the

latest government data showing it has invested roughly half of

the money so far secured, below goals.

FiberCop and its smaller rival Open Fiber were entrusted

with cabling more than 3 million buildings across Italy by the

end of June 2026 under a 3.4 billion euro ($3.72 billion)

programme aimed at rolling out ultra-fast broadband networks.

Funded via the so-called Recovery and Resilience Facility

(RRF) created in 2020 to help economies recover from the

pandemic, the fibre rollout plan is facing delays and could be

downscaled under a final overhaul of the broader investment

programme Italy is negotiating with the EU.

About 1.5 million of the currently targeted 3.4 million

buildings were cabled by the end of February, government data

showed, with Open Fiber, which has more buildings to connect,

lagging behind FiberCop.

In a letter to Italy's government dated April 2, FiberCop

said it was available to take over the whole of the fibre

rollout project to help Italy meet targets agreed with the

European Commission.

Officials from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's office

confirmed they had received the letter, but declined to comment

further. FiberCop had no immediate comment, and Open Fiber

declined to comment.

"In light of the most recent data on the performance of the

lots, we ask for a favourable evaluation of the hypothesis of a

fair and functional reallocation through a take-over process",

FiberCop said in the letter.

Both FiberCop and Open Fiber are backed by the Italian

state, and the government is considering a potential combination

of their respective network infrastructures.

FiberCop was spun off last year from Telecom Italia (TIM)

and sold to a KKR-led consortium including Italy's

economy ministry under a deal worth up to 22 billion euros.

Open Fiber is 60% owned by Italian state lender Cassa

Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), with Australian fund Macquarie

holding the remainder.

Italy had already cut the number of buildings to be covered

by the new fibre networks by 155,000 in 2023.

The country lags European peers in high-speed fixed-line

internet coverage, with some 59% of households having access to

ultrafast broadband against an EU average of 79%, according to

the latest EU data.

($1 = 0.9141 euros)