The Strait Bridge once again returns to the center of the political agenda, driven by the new Infrastructure decree just approved by the Council of Ministers. The declared objective is to definitively unblock the work by overcoming the findings of the Court of Auditors and speed up the authorization process. But, between rules scaled down at the last moment, technical steps still to be clarified and doubts about costs, environmental impacts and real priorities for the country, the feeling is that of a film already seen, with an ending that remains to be written.
In fact, among the measures approved in the last few hours by the Council of Ministers together with the Security decree, the new Infrastructure decree also appears, which contains, in fact, measures designed to overcome the findings of the Court of Auditors and allow the start of construction sites.
In the definitive text, the provision that would have limited the control action of the judiciary on the work would have been excluded, just as the appointment of a single super commissioner was skipped – a position for which the name of the former CEO of Stretto di Messina Spa, Pietro Ciucci, had been hypothesized, arousing criticism for a possible conflict of interest. Meanwhile, according to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure Matteo Salvini, the opening of the construction sites would now take a matter of a few months.
What the decree provides
The decree essentially aims to speed up and complete the authorization process for the stable connection between Sicily and Calabria, coordinating the work of the various administrations involved and defining key steps such as:
According to the documents, therefore, the Ministry of Infrastructure should send the program agreement to the Court of Auditors for verification of legitimacy and work, with the Presidency of the Council and the other competent bodies, on the new approval resolution. The steps envisaged also include the opinion of the Transport Regulatory Authority on toll tariffs and that of the Superior Council of Public Works.
And on the environmental front?
Good question. The Government would be committed to respecting the obligations set out in the Habitats Directive. That is, it would have undertaken to complete the obligations required by Directive 92/43/EC, with two distinct acts: a survey of the environmental assessments by the Ministry of the Environment and a provision by the MIT itself on the effects of the work on public health and safety.
Meanwhile, the opposition continues to contest the choice to allocate huge resources to a work considered a priority by the Government but not by large sections of the population, especially in light of the social, economic and climatic emergencies affecting various Italian territories, starting with Sicily.
In the territories devastated by Cyclone Harry there are still families without a roof over their heads, entire municipalities dealing with extensive damage and vital infrastructures completely out of order – says Patty L’Abbate, of the M5S Training School Committee. A serious government, faced with the floundering south, should have put the imagination of a man in the drawer bridge whose engineering unknowns are all still there. It would free up resources and lend a helping hand to desperate citizens. Instead we continue with this demeaning blunder, of a blatantly electoral nature. Meloni and his team care little about the citizens’ interest.
According to critics, the risk is that of forcing technical and environmental assessment procedures on a project already judged to be deficient in various respects, including aspects related to seismic safety and administrative legitimacy. Hence the accusation of wanting to speed up the process by reducing the space for public control.
The debate therefore remains open: on the one hand the executive insists on the strategic value of the Bridge as a key infrastructure for the South and for national connections. On the other hand, doubts continue to emerge about costs, environmental impacts and real priorities for the country. While Sicily sinks.
