The Bridge forms part of the route for the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Multimodal Corridor, a north-south corridor that the EU considers to be of major importance, with rail freight crossing Europe from Helsinki and Stockholm through to Palermo and Catania, before heading on to Malta.
The main aim of the infrastructure network is to make freight and passenger transport more sustainable, reducing the environmental impact by transferring transport from road to rail, whilst at the same time facilitating trade by removing the bottlenecks that currently cause congestion and delays. Stretto di Messina successfully participated in a European call for applications for the Connecting Europe Facility for Transport, open to all EU countries seeking financing for transport projects. In this regard, the European Commission highlighted the public interest in the project, based on its contribution to the four TEN-T corridor objectives: cohesion, efficiency, sustainability, and enhanced user benefits. The aspects taken into account included the positive social and economic effects of the project, reduced journey times, and the impact on noise and air pollution. The project’s ability to boost accessibility and economic development for Calabria and Sicily, by improving connections, was also positively assessed.