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ROME, April 14 (Reuters) – A project to build a bridge
connecting the Italian mainland to the island of Sicily will
cost as much as 14.6 billion euros ($16.14 billion), a Treasury
document showed, a near-50% increase compared with previous
government estimates.
The bridge project, which has been in the planning stages
for decades, appeared to have been killed off in 2013 by former
Prime Minister Mario Monti, who closed down the company created
to oversee its construction during an austerity drive.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government revived it
shortly after taking office in October last year and said an
Italian-led consortium was likely to be given the contract to
build the around 5-km-long (3.11 miles) suspension bridge.
Meloni’s nationalist government initially estimated the cost
of the works at 10 billion euros.
But the Treasury’s Economic and Financial Document (DEF)
approved this week forecast construction costs of 13.5 billion
euros for the bridge itself, with a further 1.1 billion euros
needed to improve rail links between Sicily and the southern
Calabria region that makes up the toe of mainland Italy.
The DEF also highlighted that funds for the project had
still not been allocated.
The government aims to finance it from the budgets of
regional governments, state funds to be allocated in next year’s
budget law, and subsidies under the European Union’s Connecting
Europe Facility, the Treasury document said.
Opposition lawmaker and Green party leader Angelo Bonelli on
Friday called the project “insanity … a political and media
fraud”, and asked the government to scrap it in view of the cost
and lack of certainty over its funding.
Critics of the plan say it would be a waste of public money
and question the wisdom of building a bridge in an active
earthquake zone.
Supporters claim instead that it would breathe life into
Italy’s struggling economy and help to reduce the gap between
its poorer south and wealthier north.
($1 = 0.9047 euros)
(Reporting by Federico Maccioni, editing by Gavin Jones and
Jane Merriman)
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