Italy will finally build a bridge to Sicily after 2000 years

Rome: Italy has finally approved a €13.5bn ($24 billion) plan to build the world’s longest suspension bridge from the mainland to Sicily – an idea first envisaged by the ancient Romans – despite concerns funds will be siphoned off by the mafia.

The 3.7-kilometre suspension bridge will stretch across the Strait of Messina from Calabria – home turf to the powerful ’Ndrangheta mafia – to Sicily, stronghold of the Cosa Nostra organised crime group.

The huge public outlay will be counted as defence spending to help Italy meet NATO’s military expenditure target.

A digital rendering of the proposed bridge linking the Italian mainland with Sicily.Credit: AP

The Romans first envisioned connecting the island to the mainland by a series of connected boats, before the plans were abandoned because of concerns that such a structure would block maritime traffic in the strait.

The idea picked up again in the 1950s but was stalled for decades, not only because of concerns about organised crime but also because the area is seismically active – an earthquake in 1908 killed more than 80,000 people.

The earthquake and subsequent tsunami almost destroyed Reggio di Calabria, on the toe of the Italian boot, and Messina, on the Sicilian side of the strait.

Once the bridge is built, up to 6000 cars an hour will be able to cross, as well as 200 trains a day. Credit: AP

In 2002, a £2.9 billion ($6 billion) bridge was proposed with the backing of then-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who said: “This time we’re going to build it. Take it from me, I guarantee it.” In 2009, the cost was £6 billion, but again Berlusconi was enthusiastic before the idea finally petered out.

Brushing aside earthquake concerns, Italy’s Transport Minister, Matteo Salvini, announced on Wednesday that the ambitious scheme would finally go ahead.

It will be “the biggest infrastructure project in the West”, he said, after a government committee with oversight of strategic public investments approved the project.

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It will also help Italy reach the increased 5 per cent defence spending targets that the Trump administration has long demanded of its NATO allies.

Giorgia Meloni’s government has indicated that it will classify the Messina bridge as a strategic investment, which will help bump up its current defence spending, which stands at less than 2 per cent of its GDP. The government has argued that the bridge would strengthen Europe’s defences by facilitating easier troop movements to military bases in Sicily, part of NATO’s southern flank.

Preliminary work and geological surveys are due to begin in the autumn, with construction expected to start next year. The bridge is due to be completed by 2032 or 2033.

The project would create 120,000 jobs a year and billions of euros would be invested in new roads, railway stations and other related infrastructure, Salvini said.

Addressing worries that the ’Ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra would be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of skimming off billions of euros in government funding, he said there would be vigilance “24 hours a day” against mafia infiltration.

The bridge is due to be completed by 2032 or 2033.Credit: AP

The government would employ the same anti-mafia precautions that had been used for other lucrative infrastructure projects, such as the World’s Fair in Milan in 2015 and next year’s Winter Olympics, which will be held in Milan and the Alpine resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo.

“We have to watch the whole supply chain so that it is impervious to bad-intentioned people,” said Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister and head of the League, one of three parties in Meloni’s coalition government.

Trains and vehicles currently have to cross the strait on ferries, with railway carriages laboriously transferred to the boats.

Once the bridge is built, up to 6000 cars an hour will be able to cross, as well as 200 trains a day. The journey time by car will be cut from an hour to just 10 minutes.

Aside from mafia infiltration and seismic instability, critics point out that Sicily and Calabria are among Italy’s poorest regions, with pot-holed roads, understaffed hospitals, crumbling schools and woeful public transport.

They say it would be far better to use the billions of euros to improve basic services.

The project “represents the greatest waste of public money ever seen in Italy”, said Angelo Bonelli, an MP from the Greens and Left Alliance.

It was an arrogant vanity project by Salvini that would throw “billions of euros into concrete and propaganda”, he said.

He claimed one of the pylons for the bridge would stand on an “active fault line”.

Trains and vehicles currently have to cross the strait on ferries, with railway carriages laboriously transferred to the boats.Credit: AP

Nicola Fratoianni, an MP from the same party, said the project would suck up billions in public funds and risks “turning into a gigantic black hole”.

The centre-Left Democrats, Italy’s main opposition party, said the project “tramples environmental, safety and European norms – and common sense”.

Anthony Barbagallo, one of its MPs, said the project would be “a colossal waste of public resources” and a “monument to Salvini’s propaganda”.

The real priorities of the impoverished south were public transport, improved health services and better schools, he said.

The prime minister said building the bridge would not be easy, but it would be a valuable investment in “Italy’s present and its future”.

The scale of the project was “as impressive as it is cutting-edge from a technical and engineering point of view”, Meloni said.

The mega project has been awarded to a consortium led by Webuild, an Italian infrastructure group.

Addressing concerns that the bridge would be built in a seismic zone, the company said other bridges had already been built in similar areas, citing California, Turkey and Japan.

The Telegraph, London

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