MESSINA – “Freedom means uniting for good…”. The anthem and video of the Freedom for the Europeans list begin, led by leader Cateno De Luca, and in Torre Faro everyone awaits the big boss. Mayor Basile, deputy mayor Mondello and general director Puccio have already spoken. And now it’s De Luca’s turn in a speech with an unequivocal title: “LiberiAmo Messina dal Ponte di Matteo Verdini”. The bridge over the Strait according to the leader of the South calls the North: “We thought of the bridge with a view to an infrastructural civilization of the South, with high speed up to Villa San Giovanni and replacing the Bourbon monorail. I remember the Frecciabianca which lasted fifteen days after the inauguration with Musumeci and Falcone. We were thinking about strengthening the port of Gioia Tauro and that of Augusta. All this, according to Craxi’s vision, with the intention of making Sicily a platform for the Euro-Mediterranean, allowing all goods to pass through. In this project there was also the bridge over the Strait, which created that platform. I have always been for that vision.”
De Luca highlights: “50, 70 billion? How much was needed to realize this vision? It required everything that has so far been denied to the South and Sicily. This is my political plan and it is part of the electoral campaign. I haven’t changed my mind. Now the situation is different: there is a different strategy which however cannot go over my head and above all that of the city. I remember the June resolution of 8 February 2021: proposed warning to the national government and the European bodies for the Pnrr regarding the Recovery Fund. It was the De Luca council, with Basile general director, and the warning is the action I carried out alone when we found ourselves having to face the relaunch in the post-Covid phase. One thousand billion from the European Union and Italy got more based on the conditions of each individual member state. That is, the existence of a south which, in the European context, represents the most depressed territory from a social and infrastructural point of view. As a territorial divide, a situation similar to that of our south does not exist in any European state”.
“Every day the south suffers a theft of resources”
The regional deputy and mayor of Taormina continues: “Population, gross domestic product and unemployment rate: based on these three criteria we obtained almost 200 billion, 75 percent of the resources in a mix of non-repayable funds and long-term loans. And the South was the one that needed the most resources to recover. Then there was the mugging. First 35 percent of these sums were given and then it reached 40 percent. Now, with the current operations of Georgina (the Prime Minister, ed.), the one who was supposed to remove excise duties, the South is continuing to be tormented. Minister Fitto has further taken away from the South. For example, and I turn to the general director Puccio, how did we end up with the 50 million for the project After us to the former Boy’s City?”. Puccio replies: “It has been approved and the works have been awarded, which will start within a few months.” And De Luca: “We were at a standstill for a year and a half for this project for Minister Fitto’s three-card game.”
“In Messina we defended the Dopo di noi project”
Puccio explains: “We financed the project with the Pnrr, being in compliance with the times, but at a national level they wanted to tear it up and it was proposed to us to use the development and cohesion funds as an alternative, which already require us to do other things” . For De Luca, it is “an example of a robbery that we foiled because, compared to other metropolitan cities, where important projects fell through, we rushed with the planning. We managed to defend the project. They took these funds away from us and wanted to give us others that already belonged to Sicily. Every day the south suffers a mugging.”
And again De Luca: “Today the bridge is a mugging that we Sicilians suffer. Based on state law, and there is no longer any talk of the Berlin-Palermo corridor, 718 million euros are allocated from the State-controlled Development and Cohesion Fund (FSC). Money from the South, to build large infrastructures, taken and authorized by President Schifani. It’s still; one billion and 600 million from the Fund, 200 taken away from Calabria. The rest is taken from Sicily. And, with thirteen or fifteen billion expected for the great work, there will be at least five/six price revisions over the years. Meanwhile, one billion four hundred million have been taken away from Sicily.”
