Strait Bridge, Quirinale blocks Salvini's decree: anti-mafia exemptions removed, clash with the League

A chill has fallen between the Meloni government, and in particular its deputy prime minister and minister of infrastructure , Matteo Salvini , and the Quirinale.

The President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella has imposed a substantial modification to the Infrastructure Decree , a text approved on Monday 19 May by the Council of Ministers , a meeting which among other things had sanctioned the split between the League and the rest of the majority due to the executive's choice to challenge before the Constitutional Court the law of the autonomous Province of Trento which increased the limit of consecutive mandates for the president of the Province from two to three.

The Quirinale has imposed the elimination of the article that assigned the responsibility for anti-mafia controls for the bridge over the Strait of Messina to the Ministry of the Interior alone, in the text strongly supported by Salvini "to strongly accelerate the construction of key infrastructures, optimize the management of public contracts, ensure the efficiency of the transport system and enhance the value of state property, in line with the objectives of the PNRR and European commitments".

An operation that would have been in fact a derogation from the normal anti-mafia controls , among other things for a huge public work like the bridge over the Strait, which should cost almost 14 billion euros. Salvini and the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi in the press conference after the Council of Ministers had claimed the text and the changes on the controls, explaining that they would be "centralized" in a department of the Ministry of the Interior with the aim of managing them better in a perspective of preventing possible crimes, announcing among other things a similar structure also for the next major events such as the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina and for the management of cases of national emergency such as post-earthquake reconstruction.

The Quirinale technicians considered the measure issued by the Council of Ministers on Monday to be inappropriate because the exemptions provided for by the Infrastructure decree are in fact foreseen in cases of emergency or for events to be organized in a short time (such as the Olympics): this was not the case for the bridge over the Strait, which according to forecasts will be completed in 2032.

The rejection imposed by Mattarella was met with great embarrassment at the Ministry , but also anger. According to Corriere della Sera, Salvini and the League could propose the same exemption in the form of an amendment during the discussion in the Chamber or Senate, in open conflict with the Quirinale.