Latest news on the Bridge over the Strait of Messina
May 4, 2024
10:04
The construction sites for the Strait Bridge should have opened in the summer, according to the declarations of Minister Salvini and CEO Pietro Ciucci a few months ago. The latter, however, said today that the executive project will only arrive “by the end of the year”.
“The executive project of the Strait Bridge of Messina will arrive by the end of the year”. Words of Pietro Ciucci, managing director of the company Stretto di Messina Spa which is responsible for the design of the work. The bridge, an infrastructure on which the Minister of Transport Matteo Salvini has mainly focused politically, is slowed down not only by an investigation file from the Rome Prosecutor’s Office (which in reality is still in the preliminary stages), but above all by the requests of technicians who want clarifications on the projects presented so far opposition: the Ministry of the Environment is asking for more complete explanations and information.
On April 13, the Via commission (environmental impact assessment) of the ministry, which undertook to analyze the final project of the bridge, sent 239 integration requests. Among the reports there were not only outdated calculations, missing documents or absent clarifications, but also completely illegible tables. There would be thirty days to respond to the commission’s requests, therefore until May 13, but already at the end of April the government itself had clarified that the time could be extended.
Today CEO Ciucci, in an interview with Rai Radio 1, confirmed that the company will take more time: “The procedure also includes the possibility to request an extension. We are studying the possibility of carrying out further analyzes in the field which would allow us to go even beyond what is required by law, in order to give the best possible response to the observations made by Mase”.
The Bridge between delays, appeals, requests for integration: Salvini’s roadmap is a utopia
The same Ciucci who in February stated that it would be possible to have the green light from the Cipess (Inter-ministerial Committee for economic planning and sustainable development, essentially the last bureaucratic step) at the end of June and start work in the summer was forced to change definitely perspective. The executive project should have arrived by July 31st, but instead will be completed “by the end of the year”. On the other hand, for a few months now Minister Salvini had gone from saying that the works would start “in the summer” to talking about starting “by 2024”.
As reconstructed by Fanpage.it already in recent days and confirmed today by Ciucci, the idea of starting work this summer is a utopia. Considering the reports made by the Ministry of the Environment, the time it will take to respond (even going beyond May 13), then the further weeks available to the Via commission to evaluate the additions, it is possible that the summer will begin without it having arrived not even this formal approval.
After that, other steps will be needed, including the OK from Cipess. In the meantime, without the approved executive project, practically no significant intervention will be able to start. So, to see a stone laid in the first construction site, it seems that we will have to wait at least the end of the year. Provided that other appeals or bureaucratic obstacles do not stop the work yet.
