VILLA SAN GIOVANNI – I No Bridge committees of Calabria and Sicilyduring today’s press conference, they illustrated the organizational and logistical details of the event and once again presented the reasons for the NO to the work. The event, we remind you, is scheduled for Saturday 18 May starting from 9.30 am starting from Piazza Valsesia. The participation of citizens, associations, political-trade union organizations from Calabria and Sicily is expected to take place in the Villa San Giovanni procession. “The registrations received so far – underlined the promoters of the event – demonstrate how the mobilization against the Bridge does not only concern the Strait area but the entire South of Italy, at the moment in which differentiated autonomy translates into law the historical inequalities between the south and north of the peninsula. This territory cannot be held hostage by the propaganda ambitions of an unscrupulous ruling class disconnected from the real priorities of the population.
The sloppiness with which the Strait of Messina presided over by the indestructible Ciucci, a company resurrected by Minister Salvini and which we have seen so far 300 million euros (of which 4 this year alone) for studies, research and incomplete planning, has put together the final project and is a demonstration of the lightness and superficiality with which the government thinks it can play with people’s lives”.
For the No Bridge Committee, there are not only the growing doubts of engineers and designers who are not prejudicially opposed to the Bridge but are aware of the insurmountable critical issues that would accompany its construction today, but dozens of findings (68) have been raised by the same scientific commission of the
Strait of Messina and hundreds of observations and requests for additions (239) were processed
by the Ministry of the Environment. “So much so that – it was remarked during the press conference – the Strait of Messina had to formulate a request for the suspension of the deadlines for a period of 120 days for the presentation of the supplementary documentation for the completion and updating for the Evaluation procedure of environmental impact. Which led the mayors of the areas interested in the project to ask the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport to suspend the preliminary services conference on the stable connection between Sicily and Calabria. The dances about numbers (think of the hoaxes on the figures of jobs or the bogus reference to bridges of equal length and functionality, currently non-existent) are accompanied by distortions that are difficult to accept, such as the threat of expropriation which weighs on hundreds of families from Ville and Messina despite in the absence of an executive project! And all this while it emerges more and more every day that the only ones who have gotten rich so far have been those
political-business conglomerates benefited from the Bridge process.
The Government’s gamble led to unfortunate political choices that led to the
diversion of resources from which the entire territory would have benefited: approximately 6 billion between the Fund
Cohesion and Development for Calabria and Sicily and the Infrastructure Equalization Funds: (public) money that would have allowed us to address a public health system that is increasingly being phased out, the strengthening of road and rail connections, the setting up of an effective naval fleet , economic and low environmental impact, to effective and inclusive employment policies, which prevent the emigration of young people, perhaps encouraging their return.
We reiterate the unsustainability of a work that has no public utility for Calabrians and
Sicilians, compared to a traffic that in the Strait is made up of 80% of commuters, who do not
will find no benefit in using the Bridge, whose access ramps will be located at
distance of tens of kilometers from Reggio and Messina, unless you want to make it even longer
crossing the Strait.
It is not secondary to remember the fragile beauty of the ecosystem of the Strait, which would be
criminal to compromise in times when environmental justice is being discussed on a global level
inter-species. An environment that will not only be compromised in Villa San Giovanni and Messina, but in
a very large area that goes from Montebello Ionico to Limbadi: territories affected by construction sites,
landfills and excavations”.
For the No Bridge Committee, it is necessary to mobilize because even if they never build the Bridge, they will be able to start construction sites only to produce that speculative mechanism whereby the great work produces money and earnings (for a very few, as emerges more and more every day) even in the absence of progress
infrastructural!
“For this reason we ask for the widest possible participation of all citizens and administrators of the areas affected by the project to protect this territory, safeguard its present and future, and we strongly ask for the closure of the Stretto di Messina company”.
The appointment, we reiterate, is for May 18th at 9.30 am in Piazza Valsesia.
