Work with your imagination, you are in the front rows with me at the theater of ancient republican Rome to see Plautus’ last amazing comedy De Ponte Messanae (Yes, On the Messina bridge). While waiting for the show to start, spectators giggled in the audience just because of the title. In the ides of toApril oftoyear 200 to.C. (April 15) we find ourselves in a theater that has an austere setting at the center of the scene, with columns placed like an amphitheater, and in which sit high officials of the Republic (pleased) and expropriating commoners (rather angry). Silence and then buzz, the show begins. After a short time, a breathless messenger enters the scene, bursts onto the scene and announces: «There are 240, there are 240 requests for integration of the project, it is a setback for the bridge over the Strait of Messina, it cannot stand!». Some dignitaries become agitated. The authoritative Pichetto (minister), imperturbable, responds: «It is completely normal for there to be observations and requests for data and technical information». Mmurmur in the room. Throw your heart over the obstacle Salvini (minister): «I’m going straight ahead, the work will start by the summer». Chiosa, a certain Ciucci (CEO of Stretto di Messina SpA – SdM SpA): «We hope to have Cipess approval by the end of the summer, which ends in September». Thunderous laughter from the audience in the theater due to the arrogance of the characters, but above all due to the confusion between summer and autumn: the protagonists of the comedy don’t even know in which season to place the month of September in the calendar (Plautus is brilliant). And the main actors don’t even know how to distinguish between approval and opening of construction sites. Let’s make it short, the comedy, now transformed into farce, comes to an end goddess ex machina Minerva (goddess of wisdom, ingenuity and useful arts, including engineering) who enters impetuously and orders the dignitaries to vacate the camp. The dignitaries exit the scene with a man following them customersa customer, a certain Salini (CEO of Eurolink, general contractorled by Webuild) which cuts through, like the others, the swirl of paper of the presumed definitive project that flutters and lands on the stage.
Let’s spoil the comedy, which is inspired by true events: above all the sentences are exactly those in quotes and the surnames of the protagonists remain unchanged in this 2024 d.C. Last April 15th, the first day of the opening of the preliminary services conference on the CD pproject dcompletion of the bridge over the Strait of Messina, after 21 years of inconclusive studies and planning, the 221 main requests for integration into the so-called Definitive project 2024 of the bridgepublished on the VIA-VAS online portal (155 relating to the EIA and 66 relating to the Impact Assessment on the sites of the Natura 2000 network and on all the most relevant environmental components), to which are added 16 requests for additions relating to the uuse of the Lands and 2 relating to the Verification of orttemperance. Integrations requested by the EIA Technical Commission (CTVIA). Requests certifying the impossibility of approving the pproject (not) dfinal, to move on to pexecutive project and to open the construction sites before the summer or by the end of the year.
To the heavy requests for integration of the CTVIA we must add the demolition of the project contained in the 534 pages of objections and counterarguments contained in the Observations, drawn up by a working group of 38 expertsincluding 12 teachers in various environmental subjects of 9 different universities (University of Florence, Naples, Messina, Palermo, Reggio Calabria, Rome La Sapienza, Turin, IUAV of Venice, Polytechnic of Milan): observations sent on 11 April by environmentalist associations (Italia Nostra, Kyoto Club, Legambiente, Lipu, MAN and WWF) and by the Messina citizens’ committees (Association “Instead of the bridge” and “No Ponte Capo Peloro”) as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment procedure; observations on which, according to the CTVIA, the proponent (SdM SpA and Eurolink) should provide its counterarguments. The citizens, associations and committees, as well as being competent, are infinitely patient: in fact we are repeating what already happened between 2011 and 2013. The same Definitive project at the time it was a sieve, the CTVIA asked for additions and in the end expressed the parere n. 1185 in 2013, which listed 27 requirements, 18 of which were only partially fulfilled (including the geo-seismic-tectonic and hydrogeological aspects) and a not complied with and therefore negative, relating to the assessment of impact on the areas of the Natura 2000 network (protected by Europe).
Now we find ourselves at the paradox that a CTVIA at the end of the race (the mandate expires on May 24) had to apply for integration (according to law decree n. 35/2023) and then hand over to the new CTVIA which has yet to be appointed and which we hope will be selected for competence and not for political affiliation or complacency. Poor future commissioners who, if competent and autonomous, will have to deal with so-called Definitive project Of a literally incredible bridge with a single span, double deck (road and railway) 3.3 km long, supported by two 400 meter high towers, which should be built in one of the areas at greatest seismic risk and turbulence from the Mediterranean winds. To clarify, the proponents (SdM SpA and GC Eurolink) say that the bridge could withstand an earthquake of Richter magnitude 7.1 (calibrated on the earthquake and tsunami of 1908 which swept away Messina and Reggio Calabria, causing 80 thousand deaths); the earthquake that struck the border areas between Turkey and Syria in 2023 caused at least 56 thousand deaths. Not only. To resist the average wind, the bridge deck would deform and oscillate, with a curved profile in the wind plane of the order of 10 meters, to be precise 7.50 m. with average wind speed + 2.50 m. due to gusts. Furthermore, the vibrations of the structure and the oscillations of the very long cables and wires must be considered (more than 5,300 m each cable, with a total of 943,000 km of wires).
Paradoxes, gaps, omissions, but whose responsibility is it whose prodest (who benefits)? Certainly at GC Eurolink, even if no first brick is laid (poor minister Salvini). GC Eurolink (headed by Webuild, it is always worth remembering) went to a large part of those 312 million euros which from 1981 to 2013 were allocated by the public concessionaire for studies and designs which have so far been inconclusive. Others 26 million euros were also given to Eurolink (incredibly not to RFI) for the construction of the Cannitello railway variant (1.1 km): infrastructure completed in 2012, preparatory to a main work that has not yet even been definitively designed. While the attempt to obtain 700 million euros in compensation on the basis of a 2009 addendum to the 2006 contract failed. A coup that was foiled by the Company Court with the 2018 ruling (XVI Section of the Court ctown of Rome n. 22386/2018) which rejected the request. Let’s say Eurolink is having an attitude win-win (as English speakers say of the noantri): Meaning what, whatever the case may be, it will be a success, at the expense of the State and of all of us.
But who supplied the sea water where Eurolink splashes? The public concessionaire Stretto di Messina SpA, perhaps unintentionally. In 2009 it was stipulated between the parties – the public concessionaire Stretto di Messina SpA and the GC Eurolink – an additional act which provides for the remodulation of the right of withdrawal and new conditions regarding compensation, which modified the original 2006 contract. Changes introduced «in favor of the private party»as documented by the central control section of the Court of Auditors on the management of state administrations (drelease 17/2016/G). That additional deed was the basis of Eurolink’s compensation claims, rejected in 2018, as we have just seen. But it didn’t end here. This was followed by the scandalous paradox which saw SDM SpA – for which the liquidation procedure had been started in 2013 – ask the State for compensation of 300 million euros, opening an unprecedented conflict between public entities – the concessionaire against the grantor – in contrast «with the principles of proportionality, rationality and good performance of administrative action» (always the Court of Auditors).
It is only to be hoped that, while we wait for someone to have the courage to cut the ribbon for the start of a phantom work, no one is tempted to do other additional actions that favor (as said by the Cgarden of the Counts) again the private one, like that of 2009. Apart from the impossible, let’s say presumed, opening of the main construction site, it is also to be hoped that no connected construction site will open and functional to the bridge as happened with the eco-monster of Cannitello. Old trick, this: I take the money and run; what’s left on the ground is your problem (for example the eco-monster of Cannitello).
So far The Governo has done everything to secure a project already dismantled 11 years ago, assigning without tender to Eurolink the definitive, executive design and construction of a work (whose prudential value was estimated at 14.6 billion euros (declared in DEF 2023), of which 11.6 billion have been advanced between now and 2032 (budget law 2024). The game of Chinese boxes to secure the procedure is grotesque: 11 different rules, 7 of which derive from the accelerated and simplified procedures of the 2006 Procurement Code. The Gthe government does everything for the private sector, but for the citizens, nothing, indeed very negative: inhibits public information and participation, giving only 30 days (normally it would be 60) to examine the 9,537 files produced by SdM SpA and Eurolink; imposes the preordained constraint of expropriation by sowing panic and anguish among people, on the basis of maps and lists, which are based on a CD Definitive project largely incomplete and therefore susceptible to even substantial changes, or at least substantial for those who have been erroneously included in improvised maps or lists.
Associations and committees denounce the death, before it has even started, of the investigative services conference on the bridge – formally launched on 15 April – and ask the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Matteo Salvini to take more lenient advice. Salvini – for associations and committees – in his capacity as minister and vice president of the Council of Ministers, must defend the public interest and avoid the suffocating and inconclusive embrace of SdM SpA and Eurolink. As head of the League, Salvini should fold, once and for all, the electoral flag of the bridge, waved in vain, in view of the vote for the European elections on 8-9 June. Stop cynically making fun of citizens. Yes, fold the flags and stop stalking the people of this poor country, who, for too many years, have had to deal with a ruling class that is often unreliable, arrogant and ignorant. Worthy of Plautus.
The article is taken, by virtue of a collaborative relationship, from the website of Let’s get out of balance!
