High speed, the mayors of Cosenza and Corigliano Rossano in the trenches against RFI’s choices

Suspended between the need to open the cabinets to retrace the paths of “political deception” and the need to unmask his adversaries, Flavio Stasi, mayor of Corigliano Rossano, he is the last to launch the attack, trying to reveal the points of this decisive phase. «I was pleased to read the words of the regional councilor Caracciolo, who finally expresses a position on the issue of high speed in Calabria, while avoiding addressing the real topic: the Pnrr resources. Those are gone and, as I have long argued, this is a direct consequence of the change in route. A crazy choice made by RFI with the complicity of a political representation that evidently neither has a vision of the territory nor has any idea of ​​how certain funds work, convinced that the problem was 5, 10 or 20 minutes more or less. The existence of a study already carried out, costing 35 million euros, with all the simplified paths required by law, guaranteed compliance with the deadlines and therefore access to Pnrr resources, while it was clear that starting from scratch would have meant giving it up. I may be a conspiracy theorist, but I wouldn’t rule out that the change of route was also decided to remove the Calabrian high-speed train from the Pnrr.”

Stasi excludes technical reasons: «The internal route of the high-speed train is an amusement park compared to the technical complexity of the bridge. Stop insulting the intelligence of the Calabrians with this nonsense. But I continue to ask another question, the politically more important one, in my opinion: our political class has asked itself whether high-speed rail should be a connection to Calabria or simply a connection between Sicily and the rest of the country. ? Here is the total failure of those who allowed themselves to be taken for a ride and now would like to take the Calabrians for a ride, because High Speed ​​is strategic to allow development of the territories it connects, of the communities that gain from the public service, of the productive fabrics that makes it more competitive, not whether it passes through the Region or not. Instead of making this issue a question of alignment, let’s resume the debate on the route and the studies already carried out, trying to start the integrated procedures to respect the deadlines and recover the Pnrr resources. Otherwise the Calabrians can easily say goodbye to this train.”

Even the mayor of Cosenza, Franz Caruso, had replied sternly to the regional councilor: «The reassurances reported in his last speech on the existence of financing and on the desire to build the Sa-Rc high-speed railway, as decided and financed with Pnrr and the Complementary Fund, are absolutely superficial and misleading especially if related to the silence that on the he topic distinguishes governor Occhiuto. On the contrary, we are currently aware of the Pnrr financing of the already contracted lot 1a Battipaglia-Romagnano, and the financing of the doubling of the “Santomarco” tunnel. For the rest, we know that in the final report of the public debate on the Romagnano-Buonabitacolo and Buonabitacolo-Praia lots “1B” and “1C” the RFI itself states that there is no adequate financing, just as there is no adequate financing for the Praia-Tarsia-Montalto section there is no longer any trace nor is there any glimpse of any financial stake for the Praia-Paola relationship”.