The Italian government will give the green light to the project to build a huge suspension bridge over the Strait of Messina, which will connect Sicily to the continent by 2032.
The Italian government is expected to give its final agreement this Wednesday to a 13.5 billion euros project aimed at building the longest suspension bridge in the world, connecting the island of Sicily to the continent. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure, Matteo Salvini, said that a ministerial committee would give the green light to the bridge financed by the state which will span the Strait of Messina, thus marking a “historic page” after decades of planning.
With two railways in the center and three traffic lanes on each side, the bridge is designed with two twin cables tense between two laps 400 meters high, with a suspended range of 3,300 meters, a world record. Scheduled to be completed by 2032, the government affirms that it is a technical feat, capable of withstanding violent winds and earthquakes in a region located at the junction of two tectonic plates.
The government hopes that it will bring economic growth and jobs to two poor Italian regions, Sicily and Calabria, Matteo Salvini promising that the project will create tens of thousands of jobs. The project, however, aroused local protests, due to its environmental impact and its price, this money that can be, according to detractors, better used elsewhere.
Several false starts
Some detractors also think that it will never see the light of day, recalling the long history of public works announced, funded and never completed in Italy. The bridge itself has experienced several false starts, the first plans having been developed over 50 years ago. Eurolink, a consortium led by the Italian group Webuild, won the call for tenders in 2006, but it was canceled after the debt crisis in the euro zone. The consortium remains, however, the contractor of the relaunched project.
This time, Rome has an additional motivation to move forward: she classified the cost of the bridge as a defense expenditure. Italy, riddled with debts, has accepted, with other NATO allies, to massively increase its defense expenses to bring them to 5% of GDP, at the request of US President Donald Trump.
On this amount, 1.5% can be devoted to “defense” areas, such as cybersecurity and infrastructure, and Rome hopes that the Messina bridge will be eligible, especially since Sicily is home to a NATO base.
