Strait Bridge, EUR 2.8 billion slipping. Salvini: on the start of work, I give no more deadlines

After a month of gestation, including technical adjustments and a long passage through the State's General Accounting Office, the decree on extraordinary commissioners drawn up by the Ministry of Infrastructure, after an initial examination on 5 February last, was approved by the Council of Ministers and returned to Palazzo Chigi yesterday for a final go-ahead made necessary by the restyling of its contents, which have changed its features at root. A green light greeted with "great satisfaction" by the minister Matteo Salvini and which gives the green light to the new procedure for the Bridge over the Strait and which confirms "the allocation of 13.5 billion for the realisation of the work starting from 2026, in agreement with all the departments involved," as a note from Porta Pia reads.

At the centre are some regulations on the connection between Sicily and Calabria, which is still holding court in the political debate, after the abrupt halt imposed by the Court of Auditors that forced the government to rework a new decree being drafted by the MIT. The decree intervenes on the spending authorisation already provided for in the 2024 budget law, reshaping the distribution of resources in subsequent years. This is a necessary step after the postponement of the timetable, which is decisive for linking the resources to the work, which, however, will not be able to exceed the dowry of 13.5 billion lire allocated so far for the bridge and related works. In detail, 26 million are added for 2030, 407 million for 2031, 857 million for 2032, 293 million for 2033 and 1.204 billion for 2034. A rescheduling dictated by the continuous postponement of the start of construction, initially planned for 2024. "I no longer give monthly deadlines, because I have learnt that between appeals, counter-appeals, the Court of Auditors and no-no committees, first I want to see the paper and then the work starts," commented Salvini for whom 2026 remains the year for the start of the work.

The fact that the decree does not touch the planned allocation is also confirmed by Stretto di Messina's managing director Pietro Ciucci, for whom "with the same total investment of EUR 13.5 billion, the infrastructure decree has modulated the amounts for each year of work to take into account the slippage in timeframes resulting from the Court of Auditors' decisions". To define the perimeter of the costs, the decree establishes that 'the administrations concerned shall provide for the fulfilments foreseen with the human, instrumental and financial resources available under current legislation and, in any case, without new or greater burdens on the public finance'. But for the oppositions, this is 'therapeutic obstinacy', as the Dem Party's Marco Simiani puts it, inviting the government to 'stop with announcements and propaganda and concentrate resources on the really necessary infrastructures'.