The veil has been definitively removed. Even with the institutional tones due to the tricolor band, Federico Basile clears away misunderstandings and goes on the attack on the issue of the Strait Bridge: «This is not a project, but a political postcard». The attack, moreover, comes in an evening packaged around the political leader of South calls North, Cateno De Luca, with a rally in Torre Faro with the eloquent title: “Let's liberate Messina from Matteo Verdini's Bridge”. The political line, therefore, is clear and Basile fully embraces it. On the stage set up at the foot of the Capo Peloro pylon, together with the mayor, his deputy, Salvatore Mondello, and the general director, Salvo Puccio, go up. «The Bridge over the Strait – Basile's words – is a mantra that has been going on for over forty years, today we need to clarify by reading the papers. Today we are working with the same project as in 2012, you cannot think of taking a document from over ten years ago, updating it by changing the date and saying that that is the Bridge over the Strait of Messina. Before saying that the construction site will open in July, because the vote will be on June 9th, we need to understand if that construction site can be opened.”
According to the mayor, «if the city ever had to deal with the Bridge, the city will have to be the protagonist. Mine is not a preconceived position, we need things to be done with respect for people. Even in the electoral program it is written that the Bridge can only come after the normalization of the city.” In the same vein, Mondello: «Here we have skipped all the planning phases, the interest is to close the game quickly, but such an important work cannot be linked to such a fast timing and political logic». After all, adds Puccio, “there is no one work, there are dozens of works, dozens of construction sites, from north to south, which will be added to those of the railway doubling, which in a few weeks will already impact between Giampilieri and Tremestieri”.
De Luca presents the definitive thesis in his electoral rally: «The operation is not to build the Bridge, but continue to produce papers, to be signed as soon as possible, and therefore money, those of the Sicilians. It's a state scam.”
