Green light to the bridge over the Strait. Salvini: it will be a green work - Corriere.it

Green light to the bridge over the Strait.  Salvini: it will be a green work - Corriere.it


Of Mark Cremona

Green light for the bridge over the Salvini Strait: it will be a green work

The bridge over the Strait gets the go-ahead by decree. The Council of Ministers approved it yesterday, subject to agreements, which means that not everything has yet been completed. But, still, approved. At 19.10 yesterday, as specified in a note from the Ministry of Transport to underline the detail that marks the turning point, the government started the procedure. Even if the definitive text has not yet been released: It will be available shortly because the latest technical insights are needed, it is explained.

Minister Matteo Salvini does not hesitate to use the epochal tone: a historic day. Because after fifty years of talk, this Council of Ministers approves the single span bridge that unites Sicily to Italy and the rest of Europe. According to the minister, it is the greenest building in the world because it will allow the reduction of carbon dioxide pollution. Also a tourist attraction, according to Salvini, because it will be the longest cable-stayed bridge (means supported by cables) in the world, about 3.2 kilometers between Villa San Giovanni and Messina.

In essence, the provision resurrects the established company Ponte sul Strait spa in 1971 in which Rete Ferroviaria Italiana spa, Anas spa., the Regions of Sicily and Calabria will participate, as well as, to an extent of no less than 51%, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which exercises the shareholder's rights in agreement with the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport, to which the latter is assigned functions of guidance, control, technical and operational supervision of the work. In the past, the reference shareholder was Anas. Just yesterday morning, the minister met the presidents of Sicily and Calabria, Renato Schifani and Roberto Occhiuto.

Del Ponte, Salvini has also just spoken with Gelsomina Vigliotti, the deputy president of the European Investment Bank (EIB): the institute is willing to evaluate his participation, without prejudice to the environmental compatibility of the great work. It should be underlined that the EIB will always be part of the Invest-EU plan which will make 3.4 billion euros available for the renewal of the Palermo-Catania railway section. The Transport Minister also underlines the significance for employment: The Bridge will employ many thousands of people for several years. On how many years, Edoardo Rixi, the Northern League deputy minister at MIT, unbalances: The technical construction times of the bridge over the Strait are five years. An optimism that arises from the fact that the work is not at year zero, it being understood that the project will have to respect the sustainability criteria required by the Union: It will start again - continues Rixi - from the authorizations already obtained in 2012 relating to the railway and road connections. We will revive the plan for that work, updating it, so as to be able to do a faster construction site. Now, therefore, it is a question of building and adapting the project. According to the decree, it should arrive by July next year.

In addition to Salvini, for whom the bridge over the Strait is a pillar of the program as well as a true passion, to rejoice at the rebirth of the project Silvio Berlusconi: This time they won't stop us. another promise to the Italians that we are finally able to keep. The reference to the works related to the contract with the Italians signed in 2001 by the blue founder from Bruno Vespa.

The skepticism of environmental associations remains. For the WWF, the bridge works bankruptcy by the very high and unsustainable environmental, social and economic-financial costs. According to the association, the General Contractor Eurolink (headed by Webuild) who designed the suspension bridge with a single span and double road and railway deck, which it wants to relaunch, has never produced the technical and economic-financial insights on the final project drafted In 2010.

March 16, 2023 (change March 16, 2023 | 23:23)



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