Plans for the world's longest single-span suspension bridge lay in ruins on Wednesday night after Italian members of parliament (MPs) voted to scrap plans for a link between Sicily and the mainland. The parliament endorsed a Cabinet-approved motion compelling the government to set aside the 30-year-old dream of spanning the Straits of Messina and put other works first.
Benito Mussolini, Italy's wartime dictator, was among the first to dream of linking problematic Sicily to the rest of the country. But it was only in the 1970s that engineering advances made the scheme a realistic proposition.
The previous administration led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi secured partial funding from Brussels for the 6 billion euro (US$7.5 billion) scheme. A construction contract for the bridge was awarded to an Italian-led consortium last October.
But Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who replaced Berlusconi in the general election earlier this year, won power with a manifesto that cast doubt on the scheme.
Wednesday's 272-234 vote prompted howls of protest from the right.
"The Prodi government is against Sicily," said MP Renato Schifani, a Sicilian who is the chief parliamentary whip of Berlusconi's party in the chamber of deputies. "It wants to strike at our region, where the overwhelming majority of voters opted for [the right]."
The deputies' decision, which does not need endorsement by the senate, is likely to unleash an epic legal battle.
Prodi's infrastructure minister warned earlier this year that cancelling the project would mean the taxpayer giving away at least 388 million euro in compensation to the consortium, which also includes Spanish and Japanese investors.
The parliamentary motion described the bridge project as of "doubtful usefulness and viability." The biggest reason for scrapping it is that the treasury -- saddled with a slow-growing economy and vast interest payments on Italy's national debt -- cannot afford its share of the cost.
Transport Minister Alessandro Bianchi was among those who argued forcefully that the road and rail networks on either side of the straits were, in any case, incapable of supporting enough traffic to make the bridge profitable.
The motion urged the government to divert the money into improving roads on Sicily and in Calabria, the "toe" of Italy, but it remains to be seen how much will actually be spent.
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