Clarify TAV cost/benefit analysis, EU asks Italy

(ANSA) - Brussels, February 13 - The European Commission on Wednesday asked Italy for clarification on the cost/benefit analysis which has said Rome will lose seven-eight billion euros on the Turin-Lyon TAV high-speed rail line.
    "We are still analysing (the report)," said the spokesman of Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc, "and we will ask for some clarification from Italian authorities".
    The spokesman recalled that there is no deadline on stopping EU funds for the project, but "certainly the more time passes and delays accumulate, the more the risks increase".
    For this reason, he stressed, "we hope to have a productive meeting with the Italian authorities".
    A new government pact would be needed to ditch the controversial TAV Turin-Lyon high-speed rail link, Agriculture and Tourism Minister Gian Marco Centinaio said Wednesday during a visit to Moscow. The transport and infrastructure ministry on Tuesday published a new analysis of the project, which said it would have a negative cost-benefit balance of around seven to eight billion euros. The government had said the analysis would have a bearing on whether it decides to press ahead with the project or not. The 5-Star Movement (M5S) of Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli and Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio, the M5S leader, has long been opposed to the project due to its cost and environmental impact. But League leader and fellow Deputy Premier Salvini has said the TAV should go ahead and had mooted the idea of holding a referendum on it if the cost-benefit analysis was negative.
    "Stopping the TAV is not written in the contract of government," said Centinaio, a League member.
    "And given that often, when I open my mouth, I have an M5S or a League MP raising the flag of the contract of government, today it's my turn to raise that flag.
    "I abide by that contract and otherwise, if it is not longer suitable... you get around table and you reason and write that the TAV is not indispensable".