Anniversary of the Morandi Bridge collapse, Mattarella: "Infrastructure safety does not admit negligence"

Seven years ago the Morandi bridge collapsed. Today, Thursday 14 August, the ceremony for the first time in the space next to the Memorial inaugurated last December. This morning the archbishop of Genoa, Marco Tasca, celebrated a mass in memory of the 43 victims in the parish church of San Bartolomeo della Certosa: it was the first act of a day that will include other commemorative moments promoted by the Municipality of Genoa together with the Morandi Bridge Victims' Relatives Committee.

"The collapse of the Morandi Bridge marked a stark reminder of public and private responsibility for infrastructure safety. A point of no return to practices that generated a disaster of such proportions'. President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella wrote this in a message to the mayor of Genoa, Silvia Salis. "The rapid reconstruction of such an important stretch of road, the Genoa San Giorgio Bridge, reconnecting the City and Italy, was an act of restart," writes the Head of State, emphasising that "the protection of infrastructures, to ensure full traffic safety, does not admit of any form of negligence".

"The government is looking for the right balance between private companies' need to make a profit and the safety of the infrastructure," said Edoardo Rixi, deputy minister for infrastructure and transport in the Meloni government, on the sidelines of the ceremony for the Morandi victims in Genoa. On the part of the judiciary, 'we are finally waiting for a sentence that will allow us to legislate on a solid basis, because, of course, what we cannot forget is that there are ongoing trials. I hope that the judiciary will act soon because we desperately need to know exactly who was responsible and what the legislative steps to be taken might also be'.

"Minister Salvini guaranteed me that he would be present at this table so we expect it to be convened and we hope it will be as soon as possible". These are the words of the Genoa mayor Silvia Salis, on the sidelines of the commemoration of the Morandi Bridge victims, on the hypothesis of a meeting between all the signatories of the 2021 programme agreement on compensation for Genoa following the collapse. In recent days, the mayor had met the deputy prime minister in Rome and illustrated to him the issue of a possible reorganisation of funds, amounting to 1.4 billion, by Autostrade. "You have all seen my stance on the news that Genoa, in relation to the sub-port tunnel increases, would be deprived of very important maintenance works on all the decks and bridges of our city, which in any case date back to the time of the Morandi bridge and are therefore in great need of maintenance, so it is important to have new connection infrastructures but it is equally important that they be surrounded by city infrastructures that are up to standard," Salis added. "On this I will not take any steps backwards because not only does Genoa deserve to have the compensation it must have, and I recall that we should not have had to pay motorway tolls until 2031 and that is no longer the case, but it must take a stand on what is a safety issue now and in the future. Institutions must not only work for immediate consensus but to build, and this is my case, a city that is safe for future generations,' he concluded.