It violates the natural habitat and not only that, there are also contractual changes involved and the Art’s lack of opinion on the tariff plan: with a resolution, the Court of Auditors explains the reasons why last 29 October it refused the approval for the CIPESS resolution on the Bridge over the Strait of Messina.
Those are, in fact, the main reasons for the rejection of the Bridge over the Strait made known today after the Court had already expressed doubts about the economic coverage of the work and the cost-benefit estimates.
In detail: violation of Directive 92/43/EC relating to the conservation of natural and semi-natural habitats, due to the lack of investigation and justification of the so-called Iropi resolution; Violation of the art. 72 of Directive 2014/24/EU, in consideration of the substantial, objective and subjective changes that occurred in the original contractual relationship; failure to obtain the opinion of the Transport Regulatory Authority in relation to the tariff plan underlying the economic and financial plan.
This is the text:
“The Central Section for the legitimacy control of the Court of Auditors – we read in a note – today filed resolution no. 19/2025/PREV, making known the reasons for which on 29 October last the approval – and consequent registration – of CIPESS resolution no. 41 of 6 August 2025 concerning the “Stable Connection between Sicily and Calabria: assignment of FSC resources pursuant to of article 1, paragraph 273-bis, of law no. 213 of 2023 and approval, pursuant to article 3, paragraphs 7 and 8, of legislative decree no. 35 of 2023, of the definitive project and of the documents referred to in legislative decree no. 35 of 2023”.
The Board, in carrying out the preventive control of legitimacy, decided to assign priority importance to:
“The central legitimacy control section of the Court of Auditors today filed resolution no. 19/2025/PREV, making known the reasons why on 29 October last the approval – and consequent registration – of CIPESS resolution no. 41 of 6 August 2025 concerning: “Stable connection between Sicily and Calabria” was refused, we read in the Court’s note which also points out that with the same resolution “observations were also formulated relating to further profiles confirmed at the outcome of the meeting, but considered not decisive for the purposes of the final assessments”.
The procedure stubbornly followed by the Government violated environmental protection and procurement regulations, among other regulations. It is unfortunate that we had to arrive at the Court’s ruling to see affirmed what was there for all to see and which important ministerial bodies that examined the process of the project incredibly failed to grasp. Now the Government has something to think about – the first immediate comment from the WWF.
The Resolution.
