COSENZA High Speed in Calabria is a decisive issue for a region that wants to become competitive and attractive at a national and European level as long as the route also includes the Ionian side to overcome chronic infrastructural isolation. With this conviction, the AV Calabria Technical Political Committee, which includes the mayors Franz Caruso, Domenico Lo Polito, Virginia Mariotti, Pino Capalbo, Roberto Ameruso Gianni Papasso and the technicians Demetrio Festa, Roberto Musmanno, Luigi Martirano, Giuseppe Lo Feudo, is bringing ahead of a determined and determined battle for which yesterday one of its delegations, led by the mayor of Cosenza Franz Caruso and composed of the first citizens of Castrovillari, Domenico Lo Polito, of San Marco Argentano, Virginia Mariotti, by the technicians Dr. Giuseppe Lo Feudo, prof Roberto Musmanno and prof. Luigi Martirano, was received by the general director of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport.
Mayor Franz Caruso himself, last May 27th, also in the name and on behalf of the Committee, had asked the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport and the Deputy Minister Rixi for the urgent establishment of a technical-political table to address the delicate and very important issue of the construction of the Salerno – Reggio Calabria high-speed railway line.
The request, which stigmatized the total institutional disinterest of the Calabria Region and the central State with respect to a distortion of the initially presented project which even led to the total defunding of the work itself, was accepted.
Upon the courteous summons of the Director General, delegated by the political body, yesterday’s meeting was therefore held in Rome, at the General Directorate for Railway Transport of the MIT in the technical headquarters, during which the absolute necessity was represented to resume the original project prepared and proposed by RFI and to recover the essential funding. The urgency was expressed, should it be appropriate, to prepare adequate technical modifications without however unexpectedly sacrificing the original central route of the line, as it is the only one capable of making an effective connection also with the Calabrian Ionian side after centuries of infrastructural isolation. In this context, the Mayors were keen to underline that the immediate decision in this sense becomes fundamental today more than yesterday, in a context in which differentiated autonomy will bring, instead of greater cohesion, even more lacerating divisions between the north and the south of the country. The position expressed by the Mayors of Cosenza was detailed in a technical report prepared by the experts members of the AV Calabria Scientific Technical Committee which was delivered to the General Management of the MIT and which will be brought, together with the outcome of the meeting, to the attention of the Minister for the necessary subsequent evaluations and decisions.
At the end of the meeting, Mayor Franz Caruso reiterated that the Committee will carefully monitor the evolution of the issue, informing the Ministry from now on that a public mobilization will be encouraged to have the infrastructure built, now absolutely decisive for the development of the Calabria and the entire South for the next 100 years and more.
