The European Commission has sent two different letters to Italy with requests for clarifications on the construction of the bridge over the Strait of Messina. One concerns the environmental impact of the work, already the topic of discussion before the final approval of the project. The other, on the other hand, focuses on the procedure for assigning the contract, which may not have respected the Community rules.
In the meantime, the leader of the Green Alliance left Angelo Bonelli asked, as a parliamentarian, to view the contract of the Strait Company of Messina with Eurolink. However, the company would have refused.
Doubts about the environmental impact of the bridge
The first letter of the European Commission concerns the environmental impact of the bridge over the Strait. His existence was revealed by Bloomberg and the text raises three issues:
- the impact of the bridge on the animal habitats of the Strait;
- compensatory measures to mitigate the environmental impact of the work;
- The atmospheric, water and acoustic pollution that the work will entail.
The doubts of the EU derive from the failure to approve the bridge as part of the first environmental impact assessment procedure, the Vinca, then exceeded thanks to the remodeling of compensatory measures. However, the commission’s opinion is mandatory when a work of this dimensions does not exceed a passage of this type.
Pietro Ciucci, CEO of the Strait Society of Messina, minimized the letter:
It is part of the normal and expected dialectic between the Italian State and the European Union. It is a clear symptom of a virtuous dialogue on a work of strategic relevance that completes the most important North-South European corridor.
Problems with contracts, what the EU wants to know
The second letter of the EU on the bridge instead concerns the question of contracts. In fact, there would be problems on the tender procedure, with two main knots:
- the cost of the bridge compared to the original project of 2006;
- the object of the tender.
The bridge over the Strait of Messina should have cost, in 2006, 3.9 billion euros. Law 58 of 2023 which established the tender speaks of more than 13.5 billion, an increase of 300%. Part of these costs are attributable to inflation and loss of value of money. But the EU has still decided to investigate this increase in costs for the Italian state.
The question of the object of the tender is more bureaucratic. We have gone from a project financing to a normal contract contract. However, this would violate the European rules on the competition.
The contract of the bridge over the strait cannot be read
To clarify some of these doubts, the deputy and leader of Europe Verde Angelo Bonelli asked, as a parliamentarian, to view the contract between the Strait Company of Messina and Eurolink, the consortium that will create the bridge. However, the authorization was denied, in an email displayed by Fanpage and signed by Ciucci:
The quality of parliamentarian does not in itself attribute a legitimizing position to access administrative documents. The request presented by you appears to defect both of the prospect of a personal, direct and concrete interest legitimizing access, and of the motivation about the connection between the documentation requested and the interest underlying the application, as required by the general discipline regarding access to the documents.
Bonelli denounced this answer, underlining how, even if a parliamentarian does not have the authority to see the contract, this is in fact secret.
