Italy on Friday sent a formal request to the European Commission for payment of the fifth instalment of the post-Covid national recovery and resilience plan (NRRP), the premier’s office at Palazzo Chigi said in a statement.

The 52 milestones falling under the new tranche of 10.5 billion euro include “important investments in agriculture, to increase the efficiency of irrigation systems and to implement the production of green energy, in the water sector, with new works to strengthen pipelines and purification systems and to reduce water loss”, the statement said.

They also include investments “in the environment, with the construction of new waste recovery plants and the modernisation of existing ones”.