Salvini challenges the Hill on the Bridge, the opposition attacks

Anti-mafia controls for the Strait Bridge like those applied for Expo, Olympics and Morandi Bridge: the League announces that the amendment to be inserted in the Infrastructure decree is already ready to recover the measure removed from the final text because, according to the Presidency of the Republic, those special procedures "are not at all more severe" than the ordinary ones in force.

"I think and hope - Matteo Salvini relaunches - that no one opposes introducing as many controls as possible against mafia infiltration. I do not think that the Quirinale is against anti-mafia bodies".

An observation that can be read as a challenge. The opposition has no doubts about it. The Democratic Party speaks of "nervousness and worrying institutional grammatical errors", Angelo Bonelli (Avs) of "an unprecedented institutional clash". While for Giuseppe Conte "Salvini has had a clarification that should silence him at least for a few days".

Government and center-right are trying to get the case back on track. After an initial coolness between the allies and a day of contacts, coalition sources explained in the evening that "the entire majority is working to strengthen anti-mafia measures in view of the construction of the Strait Bridge, which represents the most significant infrastructure project that is about to be built in all of Europe". "Plans are being studied that mirror effective experiences (underway or completed) such as the Milan-Cortina Olympics, Expo, post-earthquake reconstruction". And the spirit of the majority, the same sources assured, "is that of maximum institutional collaboration".

While the League has announced that "Salvini will soon be in the prefectures of Messina and Reggio Calabria to thank for the constant commitment against infiltration". We are waiting for the text of the amendment that the League will present to the Chamber, where the process of converting the decree approved on Monday by the Council of Ministers will begin. The wording initially planned aimed to transfer "the implementation procedure to the structure for anti-mafia prevention at the Viminale", which is led by the prefect Paolo Canaparo, "centralizing the results of the checks and management of the contracts to the prefectures, to the institutions", as explained on Monday by the Minister of the Interior in the press conference together with Salvini.

A couple of days later, the text was published in the Official Journal, without that provision, blocked by the Quirinale after the usual discussions with the offices of Palazzo Chigi. Salvini's party assures that the amendment will be aimed at "maximizing, as already successfully done for the reconstruction of the Genoa bridge, for Expo and for the Olympics, anti-mafia controls and certifications for all contracts, supplies and services on the thousands of companies that will work on the Bridge and on the over 100 thousand workers involved".

The draft text, as far as we know, has not yet passed through the offices of Palazzo Chigi. The deputy prime minister is ready to "show his face", Italians must have "the certainty that every euro spent does not end up in the wrong pockets". In this perspective, he aims to "put the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Justice, the associations, the unions, the Prosecutors, all in a position to work at their best".

Obviously, no reply to Salvini comes from the Quirinale. It only refers to yesterday's note, reiterating that the extraordinary procedures are less rigorous than the ordinary ones. "It would be appropriate - notes the dem Francesco Boccia - for Meloni to ask her vice prime minister to have the utmost respect for the President of the Republic and for the institutions, which the League continues to trample on".

Salvini, says M5s leader Giuseppe Conte, "wanted to dismantle some fundamental anti-corruption safeguards", for a project that "will never be realized". But the Lega's Domenico Furgiuele rejects the accusations: "Those who will go down in history for brilliant initiatives such as desks on wheels, scooters, happy degrowth, saying no to the Olympics, defeating poverty, the super bonus, and having 'done everything, even worked' cannot afford to give any lessons".