“Minister Salvini is making fun of Calabria and the Calabrians. I am in fact convinced that the AV is going down to our land, which will never be made. Thus, the wings for any ambition of growth and development are tarp. The silence, then, of the governor Occhiuto on these issues, on which delegation to other choices so relevant for our region, is very worrying”.
This is what the mayor said Franz Caruso intervening at the conference-debate held in Castrovillari on the theme: “High speed and intermodality in defense of the internal areas for the development of the territory”.
“They tell us – continued Franz Caruso – that the Tyrrhenian path has been financed, but it is not so as there is no project and it is not possible to finance an idea or an intention”. The mayor then retraced the stages of the battle in defense of the AV Salerno-Reggio Calabria which saw him protagonist, together with the specially established technical-political committee, made up of local experts and administrators.
“The alarm on the fate of high speed in Calabria-he claimed-was taken when we began to record a series of contradictions after the presentation in 2022 of the study and the project in the regional citadel, in the presence of the governor Roberto Occhiuto and the then CEO of RFI. In that circumstance we were presented with a project that started from Salerno-Battipaglia, Romagnano-Praia-Tarsia as the only one really implemented, Overcoming all the difficulties of the track and discarding the original idea of accompanying the AV to the existing Tyrrhenian line. isolated.
“However, that convocation never came, while I learned from the press that a debate would be held in Praia. There I went there and I discovered that the same interlocutors who had presented the project in the Citadel, now supported the Tyrrhenian line, in total contradiction with what has been said previously. I strongly contested this position, also reporting that our technicians had highlighted the need for a powerful power line to support the AV: infrastructure not foreseen on the Tyrrhenian but already existing on the ridge.
“I repeat-concluded Caruso-that high speed railway is essential to modernize and make Calabria competitive which, thanks to its position in the Mediterranean, can legitimately aspire to a central role in Euro-Mediterranean relationships, exploiting the new economic structures towards Africa and the Middle East”.
Finally, Franz Caruso invited all the participants to the conference to take the next one May 10th to the event “Health: Calabria raises the head” “Because – he highlighted – transport and health are two fundamental sectors for the present and the future of the Calabrians and who today pay in a condition of serious critical issues”.