Milan, January 29, 2025 – “Whether or not to build the Strait of Messina Bridge is mere politics and has nothing to do with technical engineering matters. What we can say is in fact that we, as a Group, with our supply chain, have all the technical and technological skills to build it solidly, and with no risks. And always with the maximum respect of legality. Just like we daily demonstrate both in Italy and globally by designing, building and delivering complex works". This is what Webuild CEO Pietro Salini said today during the Restart programme on Italian TV channel Rai 3.

"This project is part of a much larger infrastructural investment plan driven by the Meloni government and the Italian Minister Matteo Salvini. Building this bridge means providing 5 million Sicilian citizens with the opportunity of being connected to the Italian mainland, like everyone else, with the same rights. It means bringing to life an articulated infrastructural plan so that the high-speed railway, where we have already invested over 100 billion euros, can reach Sicily, where never as in this very moment, maybe, huge infrastructural investments are being made". 

Salini went on to say: "We must imagine a larger infrastructural development plan for Sicily for which we have worked at a plan that will in just two years begin to solve and face the huge water shortage problems and drought present in the region, with a market intervention of interested investors, meeting what was requested by the Region of Sicily. Just as we daily demonstrate with our plants built in the Middle East, we can, with this plan, also end, and once and for all, the water shortage problem that over 2.3 million Sicilians face in critical areas, where water is rationed and where precariously kept waterworks and water collection basins exist", Salini also pointed out.  

“The Bridge will allow Italy to showcase globally thanks to this incredible work of engineering for transport. The project also includes important connecting works on the Sicilian and Calabria sides that are functional to the Bridge, works that are not functional to the Bridge and environmental mitigating works, because when joined Reggio Calabria and Messina become a large city complex. In Sicily, in fact, three underground railway stations are planned. And these stations, connected to Villa San Giovanni, Reggio Calabria and Messina stations will solidify the interregional metropolitan system for the area surrounding the Strait, a metro serving over 400,000 citizens. And amongst other things, Calabria would also see built a multi-functional business district”.

The Strait of Messina Bridge Project "was awarded to the Eurolink consortium following an international tender. As of today, Webuild is working with the Spanish Sacyr, with whom we have already built the extraordinary work, the New Panama Canal, and the Japanese IHI, specialising in the bridge and cable sector. Therefore, with these skills, the Bridge certainly can be done".

Salini, with regard to the faults, said that it is important to clarify what is meant by the term "fault". "There is an infinite number of inactive faults, and this is true all over our planet, even in areas with no seismic risk, like for example, under Milan's city centre. This is why it is important to only consider active faults when building infrastructural works. And the fault that has been spoken about so much in the last days cannot be defined as active. And not even capable, as it is not capable of cutting the surface, and therefore of interacting with the foundations of the buildings above it. To this end, let's just take a brief look at the large suspended bridges built in highly-seismic areas like the Japanese Akashi Kaikyō Bridge, which resisted the devastating Kobe earthquake in 1995, and the Turkish Çanakkale Bridge, which crosses the Dardanelles Strait with a central span measuring 2023 metres, and which has been built as a matter of fact based on the type of deck designed for the Strait of Messina Bridge. These examples demonstrate that it is possible to build safe structures that last also in areas considered to be at high-seismic risk and in complex geological areas. It is a fact that the Bridge can be built. That it is safe to do so, is another fact. If one wishes to build it or not, well this is a choice to be made with Italy in mind", Salini concluded.