"To the Court of Auditors, I want to say that I was frankly a little intrigued by some of the comments, such as the one where they asked why we shared part of the documentation via a link, because they would be tempted to reply 'because the internet exists.' After that, the government is waiting for the comments, it will respond to the comments. Let's be clear: the goal is to build the Messina Strait Bridge, which is a strategic project; it will be a unique engineering feat in the world."
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said this in an interview with Tg1.
The story
The Court of Auditors has rejected the Strait of Messina Bridge project. After a lengthy deliberation, the accounting magistrates decided not to grant the necessary approval and registration of the CIPESS resolution approved in August, which gave the green light to the final project. "A political choice and a serious loss for the country," Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure Matteo Salvini immediately commented, "but we will move forward."
"A great victory for the rule of law. Salvini must resign," urges Angelo Bonelli, leader of the AVS party, one of the main opponents of the project and threatening to appeal to the European Court of Justice if the project goes ahead. Technically, even with a negative opinion from the Court of Auditors, the government can still decide to move forward with the project. Indeed, it is explained, if the review concerns a government act, according to the law, the affected administration, in the event of a refusal to register it by the Court of Auditors, can request a specific resolution from the Council of Ministers, which, in turn, may deem the act to be in a higher public interest and should proceed anyway. Among the various issues under scrutiny by the magistrates are financial coverage, the reliability of traffic estimates, the final project's compliance with environmental and anti-seismic regulations, and European rules on exceeding the initial cost by 50%.
