Financing the Strait Bridge: strategies, budget and security

The Ponte sullo Stretto bridge is not only one of the most debated public works in Republican history. It is also a symbolic and financial battleground, in which industrial policy requirements, budget balances, and for a few months even international security strategies are intertwined. It is not surprising, therefore, that in recent months the hypothesis has emerged at Palazzo Chigi - then abandoned - of making the investment fall within the perimeter of military expenditure to be counted for the purposes of the 5% of GDP target required by NATO.

The suggestion arose from a passage contained in the new cooperation agreements: the Atlantic Alliance, in redefining the concept of 'defence', opened up the possibility of including certain strategic infrastructures, considered essential for military mobility and the security of connections in the event of a crisis. Hence the definition of the 'dual use' Bridge: a civil infrastructure, but potentially functional to guarantee the rapid movement of means and men along the North-South axis of Italy, projected towards the Mediterranean. A prospect also aired by the Minister of Infrastructure Matteo Salvini on the very sidelines of the approval of the project by the CIPESS on 6 August. "That it can also have a 'dual use' for security reasons is obvious," said the Porta Pia ministerial holder. "I do not enter the field of work of colleagues Giorgetti and Crosetto. They will be the ones to decide what falls under that increase in military spending'.

For Palazzo Chigi, the idea could represent a double lever: on the one hand, to strengthen the image of a country that meets international deadlines; on the other, to lighten the project's accounting impact on public finance balances. If the bridge had been included among the NATO-certified expenses, part of the billions earmarked for the work would have been 'recognised' as an Italian contribution to collective security, since allocating 5% of GDP to military spending would translate into an increase in expenditure quantifiable in over 70 billion euros. The proposal, however, has raised more than one doubt, both in Brussels and within the allied chancelleries themselves. The classification of civil infrastructure as military expenditure would have risked setting a precedent, opening the door to other similar claims.

  Hence the rapid cooling of the track, which yesterday, as if that were not enough, also received a rejection from Washington. In an interview given to Bloomberg by the US ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker, came the US's no: the American government would not approve of any form of "creative accounting by European allies" implemented to reach the Alliance's military spending target, "thus putting Italy on notice while the government considers whether to count the bridge over the Straits as military spending".

Rome's reply was not long in coming and took, as it was easy to imagine, the form of disclaimers and reassurances on the project's viability. Salvini's ministry, in a note, underlined how the Strait Bridge is 'already entirely financed with state resources, there are no funds earmarked for Defence' and that 'at the moment, the possible use of NATO resources is not on the agenda and - above all - it is not an indispensable necessity. The work is not under discussion'. The coverage, on paper, is solid; however, it remains subject to annual budget revisions and the trend of actual expenditure. The hypothesis of including the bridge among Nato expenses, after all, also stemmed from here: from the awareness that 13.5 billion is not just any old chapter, and that its accounting weighs on deficit and debt indicators. For now, the project remains within the national perimeter, financed with public and cohesion funds.