Public credit guarantees to firms: an overview. From the European framework to the map of national and regional instruments, with a focus on the Mezzogiorno

Public credit guarantees are the instrument through which the state assumes part of the credit risk of firms in order to relax financing constraints. This note moves from the European framework (OECD/World Bank definitions, Eurostat data on contingent liabilities) to the operational question: which guarantees — national or regional — currently support firm credit in Italy, and how are they distributed territorially? Italy ranks third in the EU by public guarantees relative to GDP (14.6% in 2024), and the stock is not unwinding: it is being re-composed from the Fondo di Garanzia toward SACE. The system has three layers (mass-market FCG, SACE for large firms/export, regional capillary schemes); the Mezzogiorno relies almost entirely on the national channel, whose Southern share rose to 32.5% in 2025. The deposit includes the English version (PDF and HTML) and the original Italian version (HTML): Garanzie pubbliche al credito delle imprese: una panoramica. JEL codes: G21, G28, H81, R58