Italy plans again to build a bridge to Sicily. It may succeed, thanks to the payment of NATO spending

Italy is advancing forward with a plan to connect the mainland with Sicily in a huge infrastructure project, even if things go according to the plan, it will take nearly eight years and 13.5 billion euros.

The Messina Bridge Strait will be the “largest infrastructure project in the West”, and the Matteo Salvini Minister of Transport on Wednesday in Rome is proud of the project, equivalent to 21.6 billion dollars.

A bridge that connects Sicily, Kalabria, was proposed and canceled several times over several decades, with a colorful history at times. Atlantic magazine In 2023, he considered it the “bridge that divides Italy”, because it inspired strong reactions on both sides of the discussion.

“This bridge has always been a dream for the Italians, especially from the growing population in Sicily,” the Associated Press wrote in a report almost 72 years before the approval of Wednesday on the occasion of a visit to an American engineer commissioned by an industrial group in Milan.

In 1965, at the same time, Italian and American joint companies were recruited by the joint Italian and American companies that propose a bridge. Costo conducted the feasibility polls for the Missina Strait bed, which was paid by exploring the Missina earthquake 57 years ago, killing at least 75,000 people, with some estimates of the death toll.

In 2005, the Italian police announced arrest orders due to a handful of individuals accused of washing crime revenue as part of an illegal federation trying to win a bridge contract, including the President of Mob Vito Rizzuto and GiusePPE ZAPIA, the developer who was one day accused of falsifying construction costs for the first session in Montreal in 1976. Monday was not delivered to Italy. Rizoto died in 2013.

Start and stop

The Italian government first requested proposals for the bridge in 1969 before it was revived by the administration of Prime Minister Georgia Meloni in 2023.

Between this, the dream of Silvio Perloskoni, who led Italy three times between 1994 and 2011 and rose to decades ago as a developer in Milan.

A plan was canceled by Berlusconi’s Forza ITALIA to build a bridge in 2006 under the leadership of the Romano Prodi government, long after an estimated 10,000 people appeared against the project in Missina. Another batch of Berlusconi faded by 2013, as Italy and other European countries faced a debt crisis.

Salvini pledged that keeping organized crime outside the project would be a top priority, saying that it will adhere to the same protocols used at the 2015 World Exhibition and the Milan Cortina Olympics next year.

“We need to pay attention so that the entire supply chain is not executed for the bad actors,” he said.

Salvini was martyred in studies that show that the project will create 120,000 jobs annually and accelerate growth in the southern economically late, where billions of investments are made on roads and other infrastructure projects associated with the bridge. While Sicily was among the famous tourist destinations in the country with its beaches and the active volcano, Calabria occupies the rank near the bottom of the Italian provinces in terms of international visitors.

Specifications

Under the plan, the Missina Bridge Strait will reach approximately 3.7 km, with the suspended extension reaching 3.3 km. The longest suspension period is the Kanakil Bridge in Türkiye, more than a kilometer.

The deck will be about 60 meters, with three road paths in each direction and two railways.

There will be towers on the Sicilian and Calipian sides, each of which is made entirely of very resistant steel, with a length of 400 meters and weighs 55,000 tons.

The project was granted to a consortium led by Webuild, which participated in major projects around the world, Including in Canada And Türkiye Bridge canakkale. The Union also includes SACER and IHI from Spain from Japan.

Treating concerns about building the bridge on the messenger error, Webuild stressed that the suspension bridges are now less likely to structurally to seismic forces. The suspension bridges are now noticed in seismic areas, including in Japan, Turkey and California.

Environmental groups also raised concerns, as they submitted additional complaints with the European Union, indicating that the project will affect migratory birds, noting that environmental studies did not prove that the project is a general necessity.

But is it defensive spending?

Among the reasons for the belief that the current project can succeed whether others have failed to achieve it is the renewed payment of NATO to enhance defensive spending, with Italy in recent years near the bottom among the coalition members.

NATO approved the target of higher defensive spending, which is five percent of GDP by 2035. While countries will dedicate 3.5 percent of GDP to basic defense-such as forces and weapons-1.5 percent can be allocated to wider measures of defense such as cybersecurity, protecting pipelines, roads and modification.

Italy has indicated that it will classify the bridge as a defense, on the pretext that it will form a strategic corridor for the movements of fast forces and deploying equipment on the southern wings of NATO.

A group of more than 600 professors and researchers signed a letter earlier this summer opponents of military classification, noting that such a step requires additional assessments to see if it could stand up to military use. Opponents also say the appointment will make the bridge target.