Italy is going to build the suspension bridge with the largest opening in the world. And they will load it to NATO’s budgets

The megaconstructions are the order of the day. We find each other Colossal projectssome that They make us crack an eyebrow thinking If necessary. However, few can boast of being the culmination of a work of centuries, or even millennia. Italy is close to getting it when approved A huge bridge that connect the continent with Sicily: the Messina bridge.

The turn is that they have described it as something key to the NATO. So that? So that the bridge budget is included in the percentage of military spending that Italy must contribute.

Historical dream. Sicily is a complicated territory. Isolated from the continent, it remains Italy and, although they have a very strong identity feelingthat isolation has led to some problems and difficulties throughout history. In it Roman empire I know proposed Unite the territory through the Strait of Messina with a peculiar plan: connect Calabria and Sicily using barges and barrels. It was ruled out for obvious reasons such as intense maritime traffic or its technical unfeasibility.

In the Middle Ages, Charlemagne too study take actions to unite the territory and, in 1866, firmer plans were drawn to build a viaduct, but they were also discarded when considering that A tunnel would be more suitable. In whatever, it also ended in nothing and, during the following decades, the project of the bridge in the Strait was changing hands without success, maintaining the connection with the peninsula by ferry.

Colossal. Throughout. Everything changed in 2023, when the new Giorgia Meloni government resurrected the plan. Contemplating an investment of more than 13,000 million euros, the bridge would mark a turning point in Italian, European and world architecture, depending on who we ask.

The length will be about 3.7 kilometers with twin towers of 399 meters on both banks, a height of 72 meters above sea level so that large boats and capacity can pass and capacity to move A large number of vehicles. The three lanes in the direction offer a capacity for 6,000 vehicles per hour, and their two railways would allow a cadence of 200 trains per day.

It is a transport barbarity to connect Sicily, but the only thing about this bridge will be the central opening: 3,300 meters that would set a new world record for a suspended vain.

Necessary. The start of the works is scheduled for this same 2025 and its estimated completion by 2032. As we say, after many comings and goings, the project is already officially underwayas the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure of Italy, Matteo Salvini, advertisement Last Wednesday. Finally, the cost will be 13,500 million euros and, as we read in New York TimesItalian minister and vice president, he is “absolutely proud of work.” Stating that “it will be an unprecedented public works in the world.”

The justification of the bridge, as we read in Financial Timescomes from the side of the revitalization of Sicily. With this volume moved from the continent, the economy of one of the poorest regions of Italy can be promoted, where unemployment practically double The national rate: 13% compared to 6.5% of the rest of the country.

But … necessary? The question is why, if a bridge between both territories was so important, something had been done. And, above all, why firm projects such as 2011 threw himself by land, arguing concerns about his price, about 5,000 million euros at that time and, in addition, about his real need. And it wasn’t the first time: Silvio Berlusconi He already proposed This project in 2005 for about 3.9 billion euros.

Criticism. Many. There are few detractors of the bridge. This “unprecedented work in the world” faces opposition, environmentalists and even nature itself. The opposition, as New York Times states, considers that it is “an economic and social catastrophe” by diverting funds from other projects more necessary to build “a cathedral in the desert.”

The animalists lo consider A disaster for local flora and fauna, as well as for a bird’s migration route. And when we say he has against nature, it is because those critics too comment that the area is prone to earthquakes that could make the bridge collapse. Even the ‘thing nostra’, the Sicilian mafia, said Be against the bridge in 2023.

It has a trick. If you have so much against, if it is not clear that you will revitalize Sicily after a mastodontic investment, why do you go ahead with the project? During the NATO summit in June, Meloni declared that, due to the convulsive moment that is lived in several parts of the world, “there are many threats and hostile actors operating on the southern flank of the Atlantic Alliance.” In addition, he commented that “Russia projects more and more His presence in the Mediterranean”

And this bridge would be a key piece, according to the Italian government, “in the context of NATO defense and security, facilitating the movement of the Italian and international armed forces in a context in which the Mediterranean is a geopolitically sensitive area.”

And the trick? Well, like other NATO allies, Italy has beenOppromeded to increase its annual expenditure in defense Up to 5% of its GDP during the next decade, including 1.5% for strategic infrastructure. If the bridge is 13,500 million euros and include it in their proposals for “strategic infrastructure”, they would already be hitting a good bite to that 5% They must invest. Instead of armament or other elements, in a new bridge.

Germany goes behind. “The Mestina Strait Bridge constitutes a fundamental infrastructure in relation to military mobility, taking into account the presence of important NATO bases in southern Italy,” they said in a report prepared last April, but Italy seems to be the only ones that will try to ‘put’ a renewal of infrastructure in that 5% of NATO.

Germany, in a recent reporthas included in these defense budgets other 1 billion euros for the maintenance of ‘autobahn’, Your highway system.

Forcing the machine. Returning to the Italian Bridge, and as we read in Financial Times, Alessando Marrone, responsible for the Defense Program at the Institute of International Affairs of Rome, believes that the concept of military infrastructure is being “forcing”. What NATO wants is to ensure that the troops parked in Western Europe They unfold quickly to the east in case of a Russian attack, so it would be necessary to focus on modernizing airports, ports and roads of closer regions, not through a road in Sicily.

And another point to keep in mind is that General Gualtiero Corsini He explained In 1987. “The infrastructure is intended to attract the attention of any potential aggressor,” commenting that “a hanging bridge is the most vulnerable infrastructure” from the symbolic and political point of view, so, in case of war, a constant anti -aircraft and antimile protection would be needed, deriving resources that could be elsewhere.

However, it seems that the bridge will follow its path, now, with an eye on the next decade, although we still have to wait for the final approval of the Court of Accounts of Italy. Only time will tell if Sicily revitalizes, but Marrone is clear that “the Russians know that Italian troops will not go through that bridge.”

Images | Webuild

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