Very little is missing from the official approval of the bridge project on the Strait of Messina. The date X will be on Wednesday morning at 12:30, with the Cipess Ok (Interministerial Committee for Economic Planning and Sustainable Development). Subsequently, the validation of the Court of Auditors will also be needed.
The opening of the construction sites could take place by the end of September, but there are many unknowns. Especially those at the environmental level, with various associations such as WWF, Lipu and Legambiente who have submitted a complaint to the European Union, asking for the opening of an infringement procedure for the environmental impact that the bridge will have on the local ecosystem.
The approval of the cipress
In recent days, the board of the Strait Company of Messina has approved the latest documents regarding the project of the bridge over the Strait of Messina. Now the task belongs to Cipess, which will give the green light to the final project. The updated value of the investment, downstream of the definition of the additional documents with all the different enthusiasts, remains confirmed to 13.5 billion, entirely covered “by the Budget Law 2025 and by the capital increase of the Strait of Messina signed in 2023”, explains the Strait Company of Messina.
The approval of the Cipress is considered a formality, considering that the committee is led by Prime Minister Meloni. Matteo Salvini, who intervened by video call from MIT, announced that very little is missing from approval:
On Wednesday morning at 12.30 there will be the approval of the final project for the start of the work of the bridge over the Strait of Messina. It is talked about by the ancient Romans, they are the last rules and last signatures for these forty -eight hours that will mark a page of history.
When the works will start
After the approval of the Cipess, the procedures are not over, however. The resolution will have to move on to the state accounting and finally to the Court of Auditors for a more formal control, before being published in the Official Gazette.
On average, the Cipess resolutions take about two months to be published in the Gazzetta and then become executive. Only at that point can the project start, presumably in September of this year.
The criticisms of environmental associations
But the Greenpeace associations, Legambiente, Lipu and WWF are not there and made it known that yesterday they presented a complaint to the European Union asking for the opening of an infringement procedure, after what they had sent in April. Write the associations:
The environmental impact of the bridge over the Strait of Messina is certain, documented and, after years of denials, admitted by the same proposers. To overcome this impasse, a special procedure has been started which would however allow the realization of the bridge according to precise conditions set by the Community standards, conditions which, however, have not been respected.
At the center of the complaint is the second opinion of the Via Vas Commission, which concluded the so -called “level III of Vinca” procedure – the assessment of compulsory environmental incidence in the presence of impacts on Natura 2000 sites. This procedure had been imposed by the first opinion of the Commission, which, while expressing a positive evaluation on the environmental compatibility of the project, had set 62 prescriptions, including the obligation to start this special process. “If there were no environmental impacts, this procedure would never have been necessary”, underline the associations.
With this second opinion, the Via Vas Commission has in fact recognized that the bridge involves significant consequences on the environment, but the activation of the derogation procedure provided for by Community legislation was required to proceed with the approval of the project. This derogation can only be granted in the presence of three conditions:
- the absence of design alternatives;
- the existence of imperative reasons for significant public interest;
- the provision of adequate compensatory measures.
According to environmental organizations, “none of these conditions is satisfied”.
