A general view shows a central square in Colle di Tora on April 21, 2021 with workers (left) and a van of the optical fiber installation company in the medieval town some 80 kilometers northeast of Rome. AFP
COLLE DI TORA, Italy — The last time a customer tried to pay by card in Anna Rita Pani’s grocery store in Colle di Tora, a small town outside Rome, things got a bit awkward.
“We had to wait 15 minutes for the card reader to work… Meanwhile, we were just standing there, staring at each other,” she told AFP.
Her card reader works with wifi, but Colle di Tora is one of the least connected towns in Italy — itself a digital laggard compared with the rest of the European Union.
Closing the gap is a priority for Prime Minister Mario Draghi and his drive to revive Italy’s coronavirus-ravaged economy with EU-funded investments.
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He will on Monday present to parliament his plan to spend some 191.5 billion euros ($232 billion) in loans and grants from the EU’s post-virus recovery fund between now and 2026 — with digitalization expected to be a major focus.
For Italy, part of the challenge is to transform places like Colle di Tora, which are not so much cut off from the modern world, as a little behind.
