The vote in Strasbourg does not support Minister Salvini’s forcing.
An arthouse balloon, an indefinite and premature piece of news, doomed to failure, which after today’s vote on the Regulation on Trans-European Networks gives Europe’s approval for a certainty to the bridge over the Strait of Messina and the arrival of funding. Both stories are fake news. It is true that for the first time, after today’s vote, the word “bridge” was inserted into the Scandinavian Mediterranean Corridor: Villa San Giovanni – Messina motorway, passanger’s rail line, freight rail line, but whoever says that Europe is ready to endorse and put the money on the table for the definitive project developed by the concessionaire, Stretto di Messina SpA and the general contractor Eurolink is abusing the credulity and intelligence of Italians.
This is what they claim Italia Nostra, Kyoto Club, Legambiente, Lipu, MAN and WWF and by the Messina citizen committees (Association “Invece del ponte” and “No Ponte Capo Peloro”) who intend to open the eyes of the European Commission.
Associations and Committees invite Minister Salvini and the “European” Northern League members, who drafted it, to re-read the same amendment proposed by the League to the list of TEN-Ts, which clearly states that the bridge is “an ongoing idea of study”. Finally some intellectual honesty. So we are still far from a definitive project and we recognize that we are struggling in trying to define it.
Last November, the Minister for European Affairs, Fitto, exaggerated with the European Commission, saying that everything was ready and signed. Nothing true, we are still stuck today – since 2003 – be careful to evaluate a so-called definitive project on which the EIA Technical Commission (CTVIA) of the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Transition has presented 240 requests for integration and on which associations and committees produced 534 pages of Observations. definitive PD from 12 years ago (over 95% of the documents are from 2011-2012) which Eurolink was able to resubmit only because the Government in office re-entrusted it without tender with the task of carrying out the definitive, executive design and construction of the bridge .
In the 240 requests for integration of the CTVIA we find that many important parts are missing or omitted, just to mention fundamental topics: Cost-Benefit Analysis; construction sites; Management of materials and therefore of excavated earth and rocks; updated risk scenarios and the tsunami hazard conditions in the Strait of Messina have not been explored in depth; the air quality characterization framework and the modeling adopted are stuck in 2011-2012; the predictions on the noise impact on the surface are not updated; traffic data is not updated; the surface water courses characterized by significant flow and considerable solid transport are not identified, on the Sicily side information is requested on the works that directly and indirectly affect the lakes of Ganzirri and Faro and the Margi canal on the Sicily side and, on the Calabria side , the impacts on the danger of watercourses are not assessed.
In 534 pages of their observations, which at the request of the Ministry will have to be considered by the proponents of the so-called PD, associations and committees demonstrate how the one presented in the context of the EIA procedure (opened on 14 March and closed on 13 April) cannot be considered a definitive project according to European and national standards and as in the Environmental Impact Study and the Environmental Incidence Study presented by SdM SpA and Eurolink the description of the real impacts of the work is missing and the Strategic Environmental Assessment has not even been carried out on a an area such as that of the Strait of Messina is of primary naturalistic and landscape importance in the Mediterranean.
The European Commissioner for Transport Valean declared interest in the developments and commented on Minister Salvini’s commitment, with a certain empathy: “we have seen that he is very dedicated to this project”. Cox, coordinator of the Trans-European Network of the Scandinavian Mediterranean Corridor, then said that at most Europe will be able to cover 50% of the project preparation studies, a drop in the ocean of funding for Trans-European Networks (TENs).
To advance a project in Europe it must: be supported by an economic-financial plan; is “mature”, i.e. at an appreciable and evaluable level of definition; is environmentally sustainable. The so-called PD of the proponents does not satisfy some of these requirements. And associations and committees are informing and will also inform Europe, before the European Commission gives even just a small tip to the Minister “very dedicated” to a failing project from an economic-financial, social and environmental point of view.
