A rendering of Italy’s Messina bridge that would link Sicily to the mainland. The Italian Government is considering a plan to count the nearly US$16 billion project towards pledged Nato defence goals. Photo / Stretto di Messina
Calling it a “monumental win” for the United States, President Donald Trump hailed a June commitment by Nato allies to boost defence spending.
However, with a surge in munitions and tanks, the deal might usher in more creative “military” investments.
They might include, perhaps, the world’s longest suspension bridge connecting Sicily to the boot of mainland Italy.
If the US$15.8 billion ($26.7b) project gets built, up to 6000 vehicles an hour could cross a sleek, six-lane, futuristic expanse two and a half times the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, traversing the azure straits where Greek myth warned of sea monsters.
It would curtail the need for ferries or flights to reach an island where its residents feel both of and somehow apart from the rest of the country.
For the Government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the bridge could help fulfil two grand ambitions.
Her administration could leave a legacy dreamed of since the Roman Empire, succeeding where other champions of a Messina bridge - including fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, and Silvio Berlusconi, the father of Italy’s modern conservative movement - have failed.
It could also help Italy - a close ally of the Trump White House, but also one of Europe’s chronic meagre spenders on defence - look like a bigger contributor to Nato. The project’s price tag amounts to more than 40% of Italy’s annual US$36.3b defence budget.
Government officials have yet to officially present the project for consideration by Nato, which would need to approve its inclusion in spending targets, but they have strongly suggested they will - prompting opponents to decry an opportunistic bid to give momentum to a bridge that has divided Italy.
Nato’s new targets, approved in June, call for allies by 2035 to spend 3.5% of annual gross domestic product on core military needs like troops and weapons, and another 1.5% on related investments such as infrastructure and cybersecurity.
“For 100 years, we’ve been told to sacrifice for this bridge to attract investment, tourism and high-speed trains,” said Giusy Caminiti, a project critic and mayor of the Calabrian town of Villa San Giovanni, where a 400m tower would anchor the bridge to the mainland.
“But now they’re saying it’s a strategic military project. We feel misled. We know why they’re doing this.”
Government officials argue that this isn’t about window dressing.
Though better known for crescent beaches, crispy cannoli and savoury rice balls, Sicily also houses key Italian and US military bases, and while the bridge would be primarily for civilian use, officials insist it should qualify as part of the Nato pledge.
Asked by journalists last month whether the bridge should count as military spending, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani replied: “Yes … it is a project that can guarantee safety”.
In April, Meloni’s Cabinet approved a policy paper noting deteriorating security in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa, and describing the bridge as “crucial to ensuring the mobility of defence forces and rapid interventions” for Italian and Nato forces in the Mediterranean region.
The push to build the Messina bridge illustrates how Europe’s pledge to boost military budgets is also a golden spending opportunity for national governments.
Germany, looking to meet the pledge, is moving to fund long-deferred infrastructure projects under the rationale that its military requires reliable roads and rails for mobilisation.
Berlin’s defence-driven spending spree includes more than US$116b through 2029 to tackle its unreliable rail network.
Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands are also considering a comeback for the 19th-century Iron Rhine railroad once used by both sides in World War II.
Nato’s spending target is “without a doubt an opportunity”, said Detlef Neuss, federal chairman of Pro Bahn, an association that advocates for German train passengers.
The spending may be creative, but not necessarily out of bounds. The Nato deal gave countries lots of wiggle room.
The portion not directed to “core” needs was left “more vague”, said Fenella McGerty, senior fellow of defence economics at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“There is a broad definition of what falls into that 1.5%, including infrastructure,” McGerty said.
For Italy, the push may help achieve an ancient ambition.
Pliny the Elder once wrote of barrels and planks strung together in the 3rd century BC to create a short-lived walkway across the Strait of Messina for captured war elephants.
Other proponents cited nationalist goals of Italian unity.
Berlusconi - the late prime minister and billionaire playboy some observers viewed as an Italian Trump - came closest to realising a bridge in the early 2010s, only to see it cancelled by a series of technocratic, left-leaning governments.
But the project has never come as close to reality as it is today.
Last month, a key government board gave final approval to the project, with officials saying some preliminary work could begin as soon as September.
Meloni has assigned the bridge brief to her deputy and Transportation Minister, Matteo Salvini, who heads the nationalist League party. Over the past two years, he has made its construction a personal crusade.
Pietro Ciucci, chief executive of Strait of Messina, the company in charge of building the bridge, said in an interview that initially it was the firm’s idea to classify the bridge as a dual civilian and military project - in part to work around European-level environmental approvals.
“We needed to explain … the public interest,” Ciucci said. “Among the reasons was the aspect of defence and military mobility.”
The project still needs approval from the Italian Court of Auditors and environmental bodies.
Salvini flew to Sicily this month to herald its launch anyway - eliciting boos from some in the crowd. He boasted the bridge would create 120,000 jobs and has sought to assuage concerns that the project will fall prey to corruption in a part of Italy where mafias still hold sway.
“Some will say, because there’s the mafia in Sicily, and the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria,” we shouldn’t build the bridge, Salvini said. “Well, let’s stop doing anything, then!”
Opponents in Messina and across the strait in Calabria are railing against efforts to fast-track the project.
A few die-hard Sicilians begrudge any physical link to the mainland that could disrupt their splendid isolation.
More decry the project as an environmental travesty that will damage the ecosystem, disrupt a key route for migratory birds and be at risk in a zone prone to earthquakes and high winds.
Ciucci said exhaustive studies have shown a modern, earthquake-proof bridge - as opposed to a tunnel - is still the best option.
Critics additionally bemoan the disruption to waterfront homes and businesses. Messina’s train station will need to be moved, and a new mini subway built. Opponents also dispute government estimates that the first cars will cross the bridge by 2033.
“Come on, no one here believes that bridge will be finished in eight years,” said Caminiti, who fretted that prolonged construction would depopulate her city of 13,000.
Messina Mayor Federico Basile appeared less opposed. Many residents are against it, he said, but one upside would be a new rail network that will allow the city to bury unsightly tracks that now mar the waterfront. “The bridge … will redraw the city,” Basile said.
Among the most vocal opponents are several hundred homeowners who would lose properties and are threatening legal action.
“If there is any justice, this bridge will not happen,” said Mariolina de Francesco, 75, who bought her five-bedroom home near the Messina waterfront in 2001.
Today, she keeps her late husband’s office as he left it, old books and files in place. Family photos decorate her refrigerator.
“This is my life, and the most beautiful part of Messina,” she said. “They can’t have it.”
Proponents say opposition to change is exactly what for generations has kept Sicilians poorer than other Italians. They see the bridge as a catalyst for development and scoff at the idea that it will harm birds.
“Please. I’ve never seen a bird so stupid that it would fly into a bridge,” laughed Daniela Micali, 53, a lawyer who is part of a pro-bridge advocacy group.
What would be stupid, she said, is to let opportunity slip away.
“This will bring in new life,” she said. “It’s what Sicily needs to catch up.”
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