Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini said on Friday he is confident construction of the Messina bridge linking Sicily to mainland Italy will begin this year, following government approval of a decree designed to address concerns raised by the Audit Court.
Salvini said the decree, approved by cabinet on Thursday, clears the way to move forward with the long-delayed project. Objections from the State auditor had halted progress on the 13.5-billion-euro plan to build the world’s longest suspension bridge across the Messina Strait.
“The Audit Court made some findings and we respected them and brought them to the cabinet,” Salvini, who also leads the League party, told Radio24. He said the government would incorporate those findings, continue talks with the European Commission and then proceed with opening construction sites.
Salvini acknowledged that work was originally expected to start last year. “We could have opened them last year,” he said, adding that the intervention of the Audit Court had forced a change in timetable. As a result, the target is now 2026 rather than 2025.
The project centres on a 3.3-kilometre suspension bridge spanning the Messina Strait. It also includes around 40 kilometres of new road and rail links, three new train stations and a business centre in Calabria.
Plans for the Messina bridge connecting Sicily to the mainland date back more than 50 years. The project was repeatedly shelved because of its cost, environmental concerns, seismic risks and fears of mafia infiltration.
The bridge was strongly backed by the late former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi but remained stalled for decades. Salvini revived the project after the centre-right coalition won the 2022 general election, making it a flagship infrastructure goal of the current government.
