WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA News Journal Update News - (en) Sicilia Libertaria 4/2023: ADVERTISEMENTS ON THE BRIDGE: A LAME BUFFALO by Alberto ZIPARO* (ca, de, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

 1. Part of public opinion mistakes the exaggerated use of announcements on Matteo

Salvini's "Balla with a high media impact" on the bridge over the Strait for news
of who knows what political and programmatic importance. In reality, given that
the media pays off, the new infrastructure minister has intensified the frequency
and quantity of announcements, also because he increases the share of defaults
and incapacity that the shaking of the bridge figurine must cover. If at the
beginning it was only ignorance and the lack of knowledge and action with respect
to the problems and needs of the South, as well as Calabria and Sicily, to be
concealed by waving the bridge, then the two authentic social catastrophes for
the southern territories were added , signified by the cancellation of the
Citizenship Income and the advancement of Differentiated Autonomy. In recent
days, then, the internal disputes of the government majority have also to be
covered, not only due to the cascade of incoming appointments; even inventing
meetings precisely on the bridge, which make it possible to avoid the
uncomfortable ones of government.

2. But how? Someone asks: - if the Executive Chaired by Giorgia Meloni has issued
a special Decree? This is not the case: the Minutes of the Council of Ministers
in which the matter was discussed clarifies that a non-formalized determination
has been approved, "Subject to Agreements" which can be defined once the legal,
regulatory, economic, technical and programmatic problems of the issue have been
addressed and resolved. Maybe in another fifty years, but not sure. Informal, but
more than confirmed, government sources specify the nature of these problems,
which are known not only to institutional policy, but to anyone who has followed
the issue with a little attention.

The failure to decree resulted in a regulatory and legal "Devoid of Fundamentals"
rather than a technical and programmatic one, and therefore should have performed
more than a few "magic": "reviving" the already liquidated concessionaire company
for the project and works on the bridge; restore the rights to entrust the works
to the General Contractor (which in the meantime no longer exists, having changed
the legal nature and characteristics of the lead company, which was previously
Impregilo and is now a consortium, Webuild); reactivate the procedure pursuant to
the Objective Law (which is possible for the procedures already in progress at
the time of the repeal of the same law, but not in this case, since the
termination of all the procurement contracts and the official cancellation of the
Project also closed the continuity of procedure pursuant to the Objective Law and
therefore canceled the indispensable Regulatory Source of the operation). Today,
re-entrusting the works to the company in which the former General Contractor
lead company is partially present would mean entrusting a contract of about ten
billion to private negotiation, in defiance of all national and Community
regulations. As for irregularity and illegality, it's not bad. Moreover, these
are circumstances already underlined by those who know just a little about the
matter.

3. The point is that, not only and not so much for the above, the Bridge story is
not so easy to take seriously. The current animators of the - very presumed what
was announced - "relaunch" of the project in fact omit a fundamental passage,
which was decisive in 2013 for its official cancellation from the list of
strategic works and the cancellation of all the contracts then in place with the
commissioning in liquidation of the concessionary company, the Stretto di Messina
S.p.A.: the same technical-scientific coordinator of the project, prof. Remo
Calzona, had admitted that, in the face of the very numerous editions of an
infinite project, its executive version, the crucial one for demonstrating the
real feasibility of the work, had never been written because it would have proved
the exact opposite of the feasibility, i.e. that the bridge cannot be built.

It's not that it's difficult, problematic, complicated, arduous or full of
unknowns: it's simply impossible. The project is judged "unfeasible" - by the
highest competent technical authority, not by a small group of stubborn Luddites
- both in the latest version with a single span of 3.3 kilometers, and in the
version with pylons in the Strait, rejected years first by the luminaries
involved for this purpose by the Society and the Ministry, who had established
the impossibility of placing the building on piles "in the sea" due to the
seismological-tectonic and weather-climatic conditions of the Strait. Let's not
talk about tunnel, sub-river or underground solutions, definitively rejected
since decades ago. And always from the designers, not from critical technicians
or thrifty accountants.

The reason for all this is simple: to date there are still no materials that
ensure the technological performance necessary to build it. This insurmountable
problem is, of course, never mentioned by local and national politicians and
public decision makers; who probably, like Salvini today, having neither the
desire nor the ability to come to terms with the real needs and true prospects of
Calabria, Sicily and the South, fall back on an even more exhilarating imitation
of Cetto La Whatever, and cover their own ignorance continuing to scream out loud
"let's make the bridge".

4. "Facimu U Ponti!": these are three simple, clear and eye-catching words, even
for those who casually watch the media. How many more would be needed to envisage
the rehabilitation of the territory, the recovery of the eco-landscape framework,
the socio-environmental redevelopment, the enhancement of territories
incomparable for ecology, history, culture and - above all - beauty? It's a pity
that the three magic words only work with those (and for those) who know nothing
about that territory (and the territory in general). They don't work, for
example, with those who live in Calabria and Sicily. Where, on the other hand,
intolerance now prevails, together with a certain human understanding and
endurance, for a policy that continues to writhe and stammer meaningless words to
try to survive, deceiving those who should instead serve. But that the local
"lieutenants" of institutional politics cannot afford to point out to the "Great
Leaders", who instead have to resort to the figure of the Bridge to cover their
own nothingness, especially with respect to the contexts concerned.

The very astounding insistence of this policy on the Pontist refrain is a
self-denunciation of his ignorance and incapacity. This is the "politics" which,
in order to announce "the construction sites in a couple of years" is forced to
ignore the fundamental problem of non-buildability; not to mention the very
serious territorial, environmental, economic, social and transport criticalities
that have emerged in decades of studies on the project which have repeatedly
highlighted its uselessness and negativity. As well as, today, the enormous
contradictions and huge conflicts, with respect to the European Green Deal and
the actions required by the eco-climate emergency.

5. The Bridge is a perennial announcement, and this is not by chance or due to a
faulty communication strategy, but because it could not be anything else, because
this is its true nature: that of an image - a screen of shortcomings and
foolishness of institutional politics compared to the regions involved and in
general to the South. More than this, it has been a formidable source of waste
and disappearance of public resources (half a billion euros in fifty years) which
have made the fortune of some political protagonists and many businessmen and
speculators. It would be good to really stop with this very expensive joke that
has become a social scourge.

* Urban Engineer, Alberto ZIPARO is Associate Professor of Urban Planning and
Technique at the Faculty of Architecture of Florence. He is on the board of
directors of the Society of Territorialists / e

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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