“Ready to start work in March” – Corriere.it

The government has legislated and WeBuild executes. The managing director of the construction giant, Pietro Salini, pushes the accelerator on the project of the bridge over the Strait of Messina and on July 4, on the sidelines of the inauguration of the two new stops of the M4 subway in Milan, built by a consortium led from WeBuild, confirms the starting date of the works: March 2024. The go-ahead for the bridge over the Strait had arrived from the Council of Ministers on 16 March, thus approving the decree on the construction of the controversial connection between Sicily and Calabria, already rejected by the Anac for the advantages that would all go to the private component, leaving most of the risks to the State.

The 2011 project

In the spring, the Minister of Infrastructure, Matteo Salvini, had already unbalanced the implementation times, announcing the approval of the executive project by 31 July 2024, to then start with the works. Today, the clarification by CEO Salini: There is a state law that says that the bridge over the Strait of Messina must be built and like all laws it must be obeyed, explained Salini. Today we have to give our contribution as WeBuild because it is expected that Eurolink, which is a consortium in which we participate, renegotiates the contract with the State by updating the project. We have already started the project updating activities. I hope to be able to tell the minister that we are ready to physically start the works in March. MIT had already announced that it will start again from the final 2011 project, adapted to the new technical, safety and environmental standards. The new authorization process, therefore, will have to stamp the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world (3.2 kilometres), which will represent the crown jewel of Italian engineering art, concluded the ministry.

Salini: The bridge is an Italian dream

Salini also used the same triumphalistic tones today in announcing the start date of the works. While the M4 subway was a dream for the Milanese – said the CEO of WeBuild – I think the Bridge over the Strait of Messina is a dream for the Italians, which must be realized exactly as we have transformed a dream of the Milanese into reality. Too bad that digging a subway is not like building the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world and that Milan is at “medium-low” seismic risk, while the stretch of sea that connects Calabria with Sicily where scientists have identified the fault from which originated in 1908 one of the most catastrophic seismic events of the twentieth century: the Messina earthquake, considered the most serious natural disaster in Europe by number of victims, in living memory. Well, not exactly the same thing.