Mayor Federico Basile was clear: «Enough with decisions made from above, the city of Messina must be listened to on the reform of the ports». And even the trade union organizations take to the field alongside the mayor, reiterating that the issue of the port system of the Strait is not a topic to be dealt with only by professionals, but is one of the key points of the present and future of the metropolitan territory (also including the port of Milazzo, in addition to the ports of Reggio Calabria and Villa San Giovanni).
«The Italian port system is not for sale and cannot be transformed into a large financial container distant from the territories and workers. For this reason we share and support the position of the national Uiltrasporti against any hypothesis of privatization of the port system”. This was declared by Antonino Di Mento, general secretary of Uiltrasporti Messina. «Ports represent strategic infrastructures for the security, economy and territorial cohesion of the country. Entrusting the government to exclusively economic or centralistic logics would mean weakening public control, putting the protection system at risk and reducing the role of the territories in choices regarding their future”. And for the secretary of Uiltrasporti Messina, «particular attention must be paid to the Strait Area. Anyone who imagines a reform that is the same for everyone is making a serious mistake. The birth of the XVI Strait Port System Authority was not a bureaucratic concession, but the institutional recognition of a unique reality in the national panorama. Messina and Reggio Calabria play an essential function for territorial continuity, the mobility of people, the transport of goods and strategic connections between Sicily and the continent. That result was achieved thanks to the determination of the territory and the trade union organizations who believed in the specificity of the Strait. This is why no one can think of deciding the future of this area without listening to those who live and represent it every day.”
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