MILAN, May 7 (Reuters) - Italy said on Wednesday it is considering handing KKR-backed KKR.N FiberCop part of the work assigned to rival Open Fiber to speed up a European Union-funded fibre network rollout plan as it tries to meet COVID-19 recovery plan targets.

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 ($3.9 billion) programme aimed at rolling out ultra-fast broadband networks.

About 1.7 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.

The latter in April told the Italian government it was ready to take over in full the work assigned to its rival.

During a meeting with government officials on Wednesday, representatives of both companies said they were open to start discussions to hand FiberCop the areas where Open Fiber is lagging far behind the scheduled programme, the government statement said.

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) TLIT.MI 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 MQG.AX.

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.

(Reporting by Elvira Pollina; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

((elvira.pollina@thomsonreuters.com;))