Waste paper, vilified with cuts and deceptions, shortcuts and perennial violations. Trampled on the altar of a rising Bridge, the one over the Strait of Messina, and of an Island, that of Sardinia, increasingly isolated and humiliated. In the face of Insularity and Cohesion, the Constitution, in one fell swoop, turns into a front and accomplice to yet another mugging against the last island, ultra-peripheral and abandoned to itself between the Mediterranean and the Tyrrhenian Sea. If there was an impeccable rule of law, with a sacred and inviolable Constitution, the state budget, that of 2024, under discussion in these hours in the parliamentary halls would have ended up on trial and condemned without appeal: serious and repeated violation of the art. 119, that of the Insularity and the economic and social cohesion of the country.
Final low blow
The last of the low blows is lethal, announced with great fanfare, complete with magnificence made up of pylons and renderings, virtual images to mark the end of an Island and the beginning of a new era made of high speed between Scylla and Charybdis, between Messina and Reggio Calabria, between Sicily and the rest of Europe. In reality, with the decision to fully finance the Bridge over the Strait, the latest brutal assault on "Cohesion" of constitutional memory is being implemented, all to the detriment of the Island of Sardinia. Not only infrastructural "cohesion", but also economic and social cohesion.
Sardinia adrift
With repercussions that will remain indelibly engraved in the future of the island, the Sardinian one. If the content of the 2024 Budget could be translated figuratively, it would not be difficult to glimpse on the one hand Sicily's connection to the European infrastructural, economic and social system and on the other the conscious and explicit decision to send Sardinia adrift, forced to giving up the sacrosanct right to territorial continuity, to internal and external mobility, to those founding cornerstones of the European and constitutional principles of "non-discrimination".
Obscuring muggings
The latest assault, in total silence, is taking place in the parliamentary halls, among hundreds of articles and amendments, among annexes and tables, where everything is written and little is read, with the consolidated technique of obscuring what is cut and highlight what is allocated. It is an ancient rule, atavistic like the First Republic, when the dominus of the finance companies were the economic and territorial lobbies, where the weight of the choices and allocations was directly proportional to the power enjoyed. Given the allocations in the field, it could be said that Sicily has regained its role and weight, what history, with facets of black and white, has never denied it, while Sardinia, with the annexes of the budget law, has reached the underworld , not only ignored but humiliated by hidden, unjustified and offensive cuts, capable of cutting even the alms that had been granted to him in past years. The coup is no longer just a press release, one of many on the history of the most evoked and controversial bridge in history. This time there is an article of law that is about to be passed: «Refinancing of investments and infrastructure interventions, as well as provisions regarding extraordinary commissioners». Obviously there is no trace of Sardinia. The first paragraph of art.56 leaves no room for doubt: «in order to allow the approval of the final project of the Bridge over the Strait of Messina by 2024, it authorizes the overall expenditure of 11,630 million euros». A figure that will reach 14.6 billion with another three billion distributed in other financial chapters. An exorbitant allocation, worth four million euros for each meter of the 3,600 meter span planned to abandon the insularity of Sicily. The allocations, however, are not finished. The connection work planned, and according to the Ministry of Infrastructure also financed, provides for eleven billion in addition to those of the bridge for the Messina - Catania - Palermo high-speed line, 13 billion for the very fast railways for Salerno-Reggio Calabria and six billion for Naples – Bari. Total forty-four billion (44.6).
The Carlo Felice cut
In the same legislative measure being examined by the Chambers, where Sardinia is totally ignored, although hidden in the secret meshes of the state budget, we read the final "slap": for the three-year period 2024-2026, funds for 15 million euros are cut 'year for a total of 45 million intended for the safety and junctions of the Carlo Felice, State Road 131 as it is called in the provision. A sharp and unjustifiable cut, given the conditions of the island's main road artery. Yet in the financial law where over fourteen billion is allocated for the Bridge over the Strait there is the "courage" to inflict yet another infrastructural cut on Sardinia.
Insularity & almsgiving
The latest affront to territorial cohesion and continuity is put in black and white in the latest provision on "extensions" approved by the Chambers in which an allocation for 2024 of not even five million euros was foreseen to "satisfy" with a shameful alms the constitutional amendment to article 119, which introduced the rule to "remove the disadvantages deriving from insularity". If it weren't dramatically true, the comparison between what was allocated for Sicily, 14.6 billion, and not even 5 million euros for Sardinia, would be laughable.
Gates closed in Sardinia
Final note: everyone will be able to pass on the Strait Bridge on equal terms, Sicilians, Calabrians and Milanese. Perhaps you will pay a toll, but it will be the same for everyone, without discrimination of residence. Those paltry five million for Sardinia, however, require that "non-residents", including Sardinian emigrants, pay sky-high rates. The result is simple: tourists will go to the Sicily of the Bridge to take their holidays. On the last island, that of Sardinia, however, mule tracks, discrimination, isolation and skyrocketing tariffs will resist. An Island adrift, in the face of the Constitution and Insularity.