Rome, 22 January 2025.
A number of comments on the project have appeared in recent days and which the Company has already responded to on several occasions. To provide an accurate picture, once again we would like to point out the following:

Costs incurred by Stretto di Messina
As set out in the Company’s 2023 accounts, since 1981 Stretto di Messina has invested approximately €300 million in surveys and feasibility studies for the three crossing solutions, development and verification of the three design phases (preliminary project proposal, preliminary and final), appraisal of four international tenders, and activities related to the 2023 restart. This amount is completely in line with international parameters, even though the bridge project is of an exceptional nature.

The Scientific Committee’s 68 recommendations
After jointly studying and analysing each of the disciplines contained in the designer’s report on the revised Strait of Messina Bridge project, the Scientific Committee gave its unanimous approval. Partly echoing the views expressed by the previous Scientific Committee, these 68 recommendations are by no means at odds with the Committee’s favourable opinion, but rather relate to matters to be dealt with in greater depth in the detailed design, linked to the evolution of technical knowledge and materials, and regulatory developments in all the areas of concern. Research on the bridge, which is one of the world’s most studied projects, leading to the accumulation of a remarkable wealth of data, will continue until construction has begun, and then throughout the entire construction phase.

Clearance
The navigation clearance of the Messina Strait bridge is 72 metres over a width of 600 metres. This is reduced to 70 metres when the road lanes are fully occupied and two passenger trains are crossing at the same time. This clearance has been measured under extreme temperature conditions. There will be no effect on maritime traffic, as the height of the Strait of Messina bridge meets international standards.
In particular, as part of the coordination of the technical panel for maritime safety in the Strait of Messina, it was confirmed that: “The issue of the bridge’s clearance has been extensively analysed via in-depth examination of traffic passing through the Strait of Messina in recent years, broken down in terms of the various vessels. In 2023, no ship would been unable to pass under the bridge”. Large container ships crossing the Mediterranean from the Suez Canal pass under the Al Salam Bridge, which has a clearance of 70 metres, as has been envisaged for the Strait of Messina Bridge. The same clearance applies to ships arriving from the Black Sea that pass under the bridges built over the Bosphorus.
Moreover, reducing ferry traffic across the Strait will make it easier and safer to cross in a south-north direction.

The suspension system and cables
Many suspension bridges have four cables. The George Washington and Verrazano-Narrows Bridges in New York, and the 25 de Abril Bridge over the Tagus River in Portugal, which have four cables, have been operating for many decades. The load distribution on each individual cable has been extensively evaluated.  These “resiliency tests” are actually friction fatigue tests that serve in the definition of design details, rather than testing resilience. A new proposal by the designer, regarding the cable cradle system, has made them unnecessary. The possible adoption of new types of steel certainly does not entail restarting the project from scratch, but rather carrying out assessments during the detailed design phase. Metallurgy has made new types of steel available that have already been successfully used on a number of suspension bridges, including the current world record bridge, the Canakkale in Turkey, which has the same designer as the Strait of Messina Bridge (COWI).

Detailed design phases
The design process for large-scale works involves various phases that provide increasing levels of design detail. The detailed design phase, in which construction details are determined, is carried out when a project’s feasibility has already been verified.
The technical feasibility of the Strait of Messina Bridge, which has never been questioned, has already been verified via feasibility testing, and confirmed in the preliminary and final designs. This has been borne out by years of research and testing involving leading scientific institutes and top experts responsible for building the largest suspension bridges in the world.
The adoption of the detailed design, developed together with the construction phases, is in line with international best practices and, contrary to the fears expressed, is aimed at optimising construction of the project, whilst reducing the time needed and costs.

Relations with the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV)
As far as INGV is concerned, it should be emphasised that there is no legal requirement for “validation” by the institute. In this regard, it should be noted that INGV researchers collaborated with the General Contractor, Eurolink, during the drafting phase of the 2011 final design as well as during the recent revision. This recent revision was developed by INGV researchers, not “in a personal capacity” but rather in implementation of a scientific agreement between INGV, the Earth Sciences Department of Rome’s La Sapienza University and the General Contractor, Eurolink. In particular, these activities involved further detailed definition of the geo-seismotectonic framework, using bibliographic analyses, as well as site surveys, geoseismic prospecting, and geological surveys. It should be recalled, as Eurolink has expressly stated, including in the press, that the above agreement was signed by the President of INGV, and therefore the institute cannot claim to have had no role in conducting the research.

Cannitello fault
Geo-seismotectonic studies were used to establish the contact points of the Strait of Messina Bridge with land, ensuring that they were not located on active faults.
With regard to the Cannitello and Pezzo faults in the ITHACA catalogue, it should be noted that the Inventory of Active and Capable Faults in Italy (ITHACA Catalogue edited by ISPRA) is merely a bibliographic summary, which, as specified in the catalogue’s disclaimer, “provides an initial indication of the possible presence of active and capable faults in a given area, but cannot be used to characterise them in detail”. For more detailed information, the disclaimer refers to specific databases, in particular to the DISS (Database of Individual Seismogenic Sources), in which the Cannitello and Pezzo faults are not surveyed, as they are not capable of generating earthquakes.
Therefore, the ITHACA Catalogue may serve as a learning tool for a preliminary approach to design, but it is unsuitable for the actual design, which, as recommended by ISPRA, should be preceded by in-depth field studies carried out via surveys and on-site examinations, especially for particularly important projects. This is exactly what Stretto di Messina has done, by undertaking in-depth geological studies in all project phases, up to the most recent revisions, including the ones carried out in response to the requests of the EIA Committee in 2024.
With regard to the Cannitello-Gioia Tauro and Pezzo faults (ID 37400 and 37401 in the database), it should be noted that, as reported by ITHACA, they were identified by studies carried out in 1983 and 1994, which are therefore out-of-date. They have been largely superseded by the much more detailed studies carried out on behalf of Stretto di Messina during the preliminary and final design phases, as well as in the recent revisions. In particular, the data on the presence of these (presumed) faults have been superseded by the detailed investigations carried out subsequently, during the drafting phase of the final design (2011), which saw the execution of approximately 400 geological, geotechnical and seismic surveys, in addition to spot surveys.
In conclusion, on the basis of what has been described above, and also reported in the most recent design reviews, the idea that the foundations for the tower on the Calabrian side have been located on active fault lines is not backed up by any scientific evidence, as already investigated and excluded in the bridge project documents, from the preliminary design through to the present. The requirements of the Civil Protection Agency’s Guidelines for Land Management in Areas Affected by Active and Capable Faults have, therefore, been met.

Earthquakes and acceleration
It should be noted that great attention has been focused on the definition of seismic action for the bridge project since the initial stages of the design studies, given the particular nature of the Strait of Messina in terms of geo-seismotectonic issues.
The energy released by an earthquake at a site (magnitude) is closely linked to the size of the tectonic structures (faults) that are present there. Studies carried out on the Strait of Messina have concluded that the seismogenic structures present can give rise to seismic events no greater than magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale.
Therefore, the Strait of Messina Bridge has been designed to withstand, with a margin of safety, the strongest earthquake that may be expected in the Strait area, namely an event similar to the Messina earthquake of 1908, which has been classified by studies published in the most authoritative journals in the field as an extremely rare event that is highly unlikely to recur for several centuries (the return period has been determined as 1500-2000 years). If the bridge were to be hit by such a rare earthquake, it would not suffer any damage, as its structures have been designed to remain within the elastic field, maintaining additional margins of resistance that even go beyond the expected threshold.
The Strait of Messina Bridge has been designed in accordance with specific seismic resistance criteria and parameters that are more stringent than those set out in the current 2018 Construction Regulations (Ministerial Decree of 17 January 2018 – NTC18 for short).
It should be immediately pointed out that the peak ground acceleration (PGA) data presented for recent Italian seismic events, as well as the fact that even higher peak ground accelerations are expected, are well known aspects of Italian and international expertise in this field, largely connected to the advancement of knowledge and instrumental measurements of seismic events which, in Italy as in the rest of the world, are ever more widely available.
The NTC18 regulations foresee accelerations in the Messina area with maximum values of 0.42g. The Messina Strait Bridge has been designed with a value of 0.58g, which is significantly higher than the value in the NTC18 regulations.

It should be noted that the PGA parameter is completely insignificant from the design point of view, which is now recognised by the international scientific community, to the extent that in the new European standards currently being defined (Eurocodes review) this value is not even taken into account.
Rather, to assess the seismic safety of a structure, the ground motion needs to be characterised in detail, involving assessment of how the ground oscillation occurs during the seismic event, and how the structure, which also has its own oscillation characteristics, responds to the ground movement.
Comparing the design spectra of the NTC18 regulations with those of the bridge’s “design fundamentals”, for an identical return period of 2000 years, the ones for the design of the bridge are much higher, and therefore more precautionary, throughout the area of interest.
A detailed analysis of the design spectrum shows that the maximum acceleration reaches very high values of 1.5g for oscillation periods between 0.1 and 0.65 seconds, which barely affects the bridge. However, the bridge responds to earthquakes with much longer oscillations (approximately 3 seconds for the towers and 30 seconds for the deck), which correspond to much lower accelerations (approximately 0.4g for the towers and 0.002g for the deck). On this basis, it is clear that the bridge’s design fundamentals are highly precautionary in nature.
The studies conducted as a result of the in-depth studies requested by the EIA Committee during the preliminary investigation phase also enabled a rigorous and up-to-date scientific assessment to be carried out based on regional source models, in which the possibility that the Strait of Messina may be in the epicentral area was explicitly taken into account. The values obtained with various hypotheses and models are consistently lower than the seismic actions used for design purposes, demonstrating that the corresponding choices are precautionary and remain so, even in light of the most recent scientific knowledge.
Also, in comparing the design earthquake spectrum with the spectrum of the cited earthquakes (L’Aquila, Amatrice), it seems that at significant periods for the bridge, the acceleration values considered in the design are much more precautionary than those recorded.
Finally, as foreseen in the designers’ report drawn up in accordance with Law 58 of 26 May 2023, as part of the revision of the geo-seismotectonic studies envisaged for the detailed design, a first phase study carried out in September 2024 on behalf of Eurolink by the University of Naples Federico II, confirmed, on the basis of current information, the precautionary nature of the design spectrum and the PGA of 0.58g adopted for the bridge.
In other words, the Strait of Messina Bridge has intrinsic characteristics, and has been designed with seismic measures and criteria, that make it one of the most seismically safe structures in Italy and the rest of the world, based on the latest international scientific and technical expertise.

Metric calculation
Metric calculation, which was carried out for the final design in 2011 and revised in 2023, forms the basis of the estimated investment cost of €13.5 billion through to completion of the project.

Lazio Regional Administrative Court and the appeal lodged by the municipalities of Reggio Calabria and Villa San Giovanni
Reports regarding the appeal’s eligibility is untrue. Contrary to reports, the lawyer instructed by the two municipalities waived the request for an injunction that he himself had earlier applied for. This led the President of the Chamber to strike off the case from the roll. In procedural terms, the plaintiffs have withdrawn their application for an injunction. The decision to withdraw the application for an injunction confirms the lack of grounds for a request for an urgent injunction halting effectiveness of the EIA opinion.