EP OKs Ten-T guidelines inc Strait Bridge

(ANSA) - ROME, APR 24 - The European Parliament on Wednesday approved the updated guidelines for the development of the Trans-European Transport Network (Ten-T), which connects over 420 major cities in the EU, and included in the plan Italy's ambitious project to build the world's longest suspension bridge over the Messina Strait between Sicily and mainland Italy.
    The agreement reached with the member states in December - adopted in Strasbourg with 565 votes in favour, 37 against and 29 abstentions - includes, among other points, a reference to the Strait of Messina, to add to the so-called 'Scandinavian-Mediterranean' corridor a "fixed link or bridge" to connect Villa San Giovanni in Calabria to Messina, which could then access European funding.
    Work on the Messina Bridge will start this summer, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini said last Wednesday after the environment ministry asked the contracting company to explain 239 parts of the project.
    Salvini has pushed strongly for the construction of what will be the world's longest suspension bridge, a project mooted by successive centre-right governments but never actually started due to environmental, mafia infiltration and seismic concerns and the significant cost.
    The bridge currently has a price tag of some 14.6 billion euro ($16.14 billion), or about one percent of Italian GDP, and is scheduled to come into use in the late 2030s.
    "I'm going straight ahead and I'm counting on the Stretto di Messina company to provide answers to all the observations made by the other ministries within 30 days: the objective, I reiterate, is to arrive at the start of work by the summer of 2024," said Salvini.
    "I am counting on Italy to be a model of development and growth and engineering".
    The League leader has said in the past that the bridge will be "the pride of all Italians" and will provide both a physical and psychologically important connection with Sicily. (ANSA).