“Identified the areas on which clarification and further measures that should help Italian authorities are necessary to face any deficiencies before granting development authorization or starting the work“, Thus – in a letter – the EU Commission asks the Ministry of the Environment of the clarifications on the environmental impact of the project of the bridge over the Strait.
Viewed exclusively by Bloomberg News, in the letter the executive body of the European Union also says that he wants to discuss the impact on animal habitats, compensatory measures and on water, air and noise issues. And, always in the text, the EU Commission has also declared that it had received formal complaints and requests for information, for this reason the additional information would allow it to respond to these requests “in the most appropriate way“.
In August, the Italian government approved the construction project of the 3.6 -kilometer bridge (2.2 miles) after decades of false departures. The plan is currently upon examination of the country’s court, which should express its opinion at the latest by November.
But precisely at the Court of Auditors, the environmental associations Greenpeace, Legambiente, Lipu and WWF, in these days, have presented a conspicuous memory on the Cipess resolution relating to the construction of the bridge over the Strait of Messina. The Court of Auditors is in fact now called to a preventive legitimacy check before the resolution is published in the Official Gazette, thus becoming effective in all respects; In this procedure, the Court does not take into consideration only the economic and financial aspects of the resolution subject to preventive control, but also the terms of the correct regulatory respect on which it is based.
Finally, in the memory sent to the Court of Auditors, the issues of the cost of the work has been dedicated to the issues of the cost of the work, which could rise and much further affecting the state budget – reads the note. The alleged benefits related to the putting in operation of the bridge were contested both due to the calculation of the traffic flows of expected, and in relation to the increase in GDP and the pro-capita income presented in miraculous terms. The certainty of the costs of the project was instead contested in relation to several factors: the design uncertainties still in place; to the verification of compliance with the prescriptions required in the opinion of the ATA OPERA phase, since today the conclusions of the studies and analyzes (also of annual duration) that have been requested cannot be known today; the expansion of the start times of the construction sites that has not been accounted for; the operating costs of the bridge; The need to carry out further authorization processes whose outcome cannot be taken for granted (the water chapters for example).
Meanwhile, reached by Ansa, the CEO of the Strait of Messina Pietro Ciucci said that the request “it is part of the normal and expected dialectic between the Italian State and the European Union“.
The European Commission has reiterated the strategic relevance of the bridge over the narrow and express satisfaction for the positive dialogue started with the Italian authorities: they are excellent news – finally reiterate sources of the Ministry of Transport. Brussels will receive all the necessary answers.
