Salvini and Schlein for the Strait Bridge on the same plane to Sicily

Together on the same plane headed to Sicily. On the one hand Matteo Salvini, the biggest supporter of the Strait Bridge. On the other Elly Schlein, against the work. “We joked. I told her ‘I go to build, you go to stop’. That’s the beauty of democracy. I don’t understand how anyone can say no to public works that will create tens of thousands of jobs. Some say that we shouldn’t build infrastructure. For me, for the League and for the ministry I direct, infrastructure is needed in Sicily and throughout Italy. Schlein and I met and greeted and smiled. We have different ideas”, says Salvini, Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, in Belpasso for the start of work on the Misterbianco-Paternò section of the Catania metro.

In Messina instead there is Elly Schlein. From a distance he responds to the Northern League leader. “You can say that they work to build and we work to stop. It is the government of Giorgia Meloni which is stopping the country’s economy, which is delaying the Pnrr’s investments, leaving businesses and municipalities in uncertainty, cutting resources without guaranteeing that they will be restored”. The secretary of the Democratic Party participates in a meeting organized to say no to the Strait Bridge of Messina, in Torre Faro where the construction sites will be built. To the citizens he says: “Thank you for being here to say with us no to the wrong project of this bridge that Minister Salvini is carrying forward regardless of the fact that it is an anachronistic project, harmful and wrong. The report produced with the contribution of a scientific committee clarified that neither wind tests nor adequate seismic risk zoning were carried out – explains the dem secretary – We ask ourselves the reason for all this haste which seems electoral and who does not care about the fate of this territory, as the secretary of the Sicilian Democratic Party recalled Barbagallo it was an award made for a value five times higher than the original project, even though there had been a judgment in which the State had won, so there was no reason to continue in this way”.

The dig then at the Meloni government. “It is already very divided on many aspects, but I would like to point out that overall it is very late in implementing the investments planned for infrastructure. It seems to me that they are more concerned with campaigning than with bringing concrete results to citizens. We hope that the European elections will be an important moment to say that there are alternatives to the majority”. And how much does the outcome of the June elections have an impact on the Bridge project? “I chose to be here today, it doesn’t seem like I’m campaigning to listen to this community and build together more effective responses and proposals to respond to citizens’ needs”.

Citizens at the centre, especially from Calabria and Sicily. “Now the people we meet tell us about the difficulty of moving by roads in this state, the difficulty of moving with railways that are not up to 2024. The Sicilians, the Calabrians are not second-class citizens, they deserve adequate investments and instead the path that was chosen in the silence of the presidents of these regions who are of the same political color as this government was even done by subtracting FSC resources that could and should have financed other more stringent, more urgent, more important infrastructure projects for this territory – comments Schlein – So, we are here to listen to this community and its concerns. The Democratic Party is unitedly, from North to South, at your side to stop this wrong Messina Bridge project that Matteo Salvini is carrying out. We also did it by presenting a complaint some time ago together with Angelo Bonelli and Nicola Fratoianni who I also want to thank from here for this important joint initiative which is trying to draw attention to the total lack of transparency in this process and also to the exorbitant costs it would have for the community while it does not promise the answers needed to improve the lives of citizens”.

Meanwhile, Pietro Salini, CEO of Webuild, tries to reassure about the wind danger: “Suspension bridges are by definition more resistant to earthquakes than any other structure precisely because of the way they are made – he explains to ReStart on Rai Tre – If an earthquake like the one at the beginning of the ‘900 in Messina a large part of the buildings and constructions that are there would collapse but the bridge would remain there. If there were a larger earthquake only the bridge would remain standing. The bridge is designed to resist gusts of wind up to 300 km/ h, while the maximum recorded in the last 100 years is 100 km/h for a short period”, concludes Salini. Who is available to discuss with Elly Schlein: “I have not spoken to the secretary of the Democratic Party but I am willingly willing to do so and to explain to her the technical reasons for the existence of the bridge”.