The issue of the construction of the Bridge over the Strait of Messina is back in the news in Italy, with Giorgia Meloni’s government kicking the project out of the attic where it had ended up gathering dust. It is above all the leader of the League and Minister of Transport, Matteo Salvini, who is insisting on the idea. An idea that once contrasted. This week the Northern League claimed that, thanks to one of its amendments, the project could even be financed by the European Union. But at the moment it is only a hypothesis, and a very remote one at that.
The Bridge financed by the EU?
In the budget law for 2024, the second of the Meloni government, over 11.6 billion euros are foreseen for the construction of the bridge over the Strait of Messina. The European Parliament this week approved the inclusion of the Bridge among the projects that aspire to be part of the Cef2 (Connecting Europe Facility) regulation, the financial instrument with which Brussels supports Ten-T projects, the Trans-European Transport Networks, a series of corridors considered strategic for connections between the nations of the bloc. Among these networks is the Scandinavia-Mediterranean corridor which crosses seven countries: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Malta. And the Strait Bridge could be part of it.
It could, but it’s not certain. This possibility depends not only on the government’s ability to approve the construction of the work at a national level and get it started, something that has been talked about for years but without ever actually progressing, but also on the ability to demonstrate that the work is fundamental for the improvement of the corridor. And in any case, for the moment Brussels could only finance 50 percent of the design costs, and only for a possible railway on the bridge.
The project
One of the managers of the infrastructure network explained this in response to a request for clarification from two Green MEPs, the Italians Ignazio Corrao and Rosa d’Amato. “Under the Connecting Europe Facility, the Commission may co-finance studies which aim to prepare the construction phase of infrastructure projects on the Tet-T network”, and such studies “may be co-financed up to 50% of the costs total eligible”, Martin Zeitler, the consultant to the European coordinator of the Scandinavian Mediterranean Corridor, Pat Cox, explained in a correspondence with deputies, seen by Today.it. But “according to the rules established by the CEO regulation, only the railway part of the planned bridge over the Strait of Messina would be eligible for EU co-financing”, Zeitler specified.
The “corrupt” documents of the Strait Bridge: illegible tables and meaningless characters
L’advisor also explained that “all project proposals are evaluated by independent experts who judge projects based on their priority and urgency, their maturity, the quality of the proposal, their impact on the Ten-T network in general and the importance of the grant for the advancement of the project”, then on the basis of this external evaluation, an internal commission composed of different Commission services will establish the list of selected projects. In short, the road is still long. And even if the approval were to arrive in the end, Italy would have to continue to demonstrate that it is doing things in order even during the implementation phase.
Careful monitoring
“In the event that a project obtains a CEF grant, careful monitoring is ensured” of its construction and the so-called Grant Agreements will be established, “which contain deadlines and concrete milestones that will be constantly monitored in the annual activity reports and through visits on site”. “If a project is delayed or does not comply with the grant agreement, the agency can recover part of the awarded co-financing and reallocate these sums to other more mature projects,” the consultant warned.
“Useless expenses”
“As we have reported for some time, and as the Commission has confirmed to us, to date the Bridge is just an ‘idea’, a ‘study’. There is no infrastructure work to which the EU has given its approval “, D’Amato denounced in a note. “As reiterated by several experts, the criteria that the work must satisfy, including environmental ones, are in contrast with the dreams of glory of Minister Salvini and the companies interested in its construction”, continued the Green MEP, according to whom “this umpteenth attempt will do nothing but increase the useless expenses that have accumulated over the decades borne by Italian taxpayers. For a bridge that will never see the light”.
 road to European financing of the Strait Bridge){kind=link}