The long-awaited great project connecting Sicily to mainland Italy, the Messina Bridge, took a big step forward when the Italian Chamber of Deputies approved the government decree with “urgent measures for the stable connection between Sicily and Calabria,” i.e., the construction of the bridge over the Messina Strait. The bill was approved 183-93. The government coalition plus the so-called centrists voted in favor, whereas the Democratic Party, the Five Stars, and the radical left voted against. The World Wide Fund for NAture (WWF) attacked the decision, falsely claiming that neither financial nor environmental feasibility studies had been made. The Italian Senate’s approval is expected shortly.
The Messina Bridge, together with the extension of the high-speed rail connection south of Salerno and, over the Bridge, to Palermo (ca. 660 km), will finally complete the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor, connecting and integrating the poorest regions of Italy with the rest of the country and northern and eastern Europe. To make a comparison, the GDP per capita of the two regions directly connected by the Bridge, Sicily and Calabria, is the lowest in Italy and among the lowest in the EU: 18,200 and 17,500 Euro, against an average 32,800 in the EU (2021 data).
A leading labor consulting studio in Florence has calculated that in Sicily alone, the construction of the Bridge will add 20 billion euros to GDP and create 90,000 jobs.
