For centuries, Sicily has done business with mainland Italy across the Strait of Messina. Ferries have carried commuters, tourists, trucks and trains between the two shores, while generations of Italian politicians have promised to replace the crossing with something more permanent.
Three years after Giorgia Meloni’s government revived the long-dormant Messina Bridge project, however, the most striking feature of Italy’s €13.5 billion plan is not the engineering challenge. It is the extraordinary political, legal and institutional machinery that has grown around it.
The bridge was relaunched by Meloni’s government in 2023, with Transport Minister Matteo Salvini becoming its most prominent political champion. The proposed 3.7 kilometre suspension bridge is intended to connect Sicily with Calabria and become the world’s longest suspension bridge. Yet despite repeated declarations that construction was imminent, the project is still navigating approvals and scrutiny. The current timetable envisages the project entering its implementation phase by the end of 2026 and opening to traffic in 2034.
That is a considerable shift from the government’s earlier timetable. In 2025, the project had received a green light from the Interministerial Committee for Economic Planning and Sustainable Development, or CIPESS, but the Court of Auditors subsequently refused to register the resolution. The court raised questions over environmental compliance, changes to the existing contract and other procedural and financial issues. A November 2025 ruling also raised concerns over EU environmental and procurement requirements.
Nevertheless, Rome has refused to abandon the project. Instead, the government changed the legal framework and continued working to address the objections. The company responsible for the bridge says that the revised framework has dealt with the Court of Auditors’ concerns and that the project remains fully funded at an estimated €13.5 billion. It also says discussions with the European Commission have continued without an infringement procedure being opened.
The political determination to push ahead is perhaps understandable. Supporters portray the bridge as a long-term investment in southern Italy, improving transport connections between Sicily and the mainland and completing part of the European transport corridor running towards Palermo. For Salvini in particular, it has become a symbol of Italy’s ability to deliver major infrastructure rather than endlessly debate it. But that political symbolism may also explain why the project has become so difficult to separate from politics.
In June 2026, prosecutors in Rome opened a corruption investigation connected to the bridge’s approval process. Three people were investigated, including a former deputy president of the Court of Auditors, a lawyer who had previously served on the board of Stretto di Messina, and an entrepreneur. According to investigators, the suspects allegedly attempted to influence the Court of Auditors’ examination of the project. At this stage, these are allegations under investigation, not established findings of guilt.
Throughout much of the Messina Strait bridge saga, attention has also turned to a second problem that has shadowed the project for decades: organised crime.
The risk is not merely a cinematic fear of the Sicilian Mafia infiltrating a construction site. Large infrastructure projects generate thousands of contracts, subcontracting opportunities, land transactions, transport services and supply-chain relationships. That creates opportunities for organised crime to exploit legitimate economic activity, particularly in territories where the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and Calabrian ’ndrangheta have historically demonstrated extensive economic reach.
Italy’s National Anti-Corruption Authority, ANAC, explicitly warned Parliament in March that construction of the bridge would “attract” organised crime and called for strengthened controls and strict restrictions on subcontracting.
The concern is already becoming tangible as preparatory procedures advance. In September, the start of expropriation procedures prompted warnings that compensation for land could potentially reach properties controlled by organised crime groups. Stretto di Messina has responded that legality protocols are in place.
There is also a historical precedent. As criminologist Anna Sergi has documented for the Royal United Services Institute, previous attempts to develop the bridge attracted individuals with alleged links to organised crime, including a 2005 case involving attempted involvement in the project and bid-rigging. This shows that projects worth billions create opportunities for illegal actors not necessarily by controlling the entire construction contract, but by exploiting the layers surrounding it.
Moreover, this may be the central lesson of the Messina saga. The greatest threat to a mega-project is not always that it cannot be built. It is that the politics surrounding its construction become almost as complicated as the structure itself.
Italy now has to demonstrate that the bridge can survive scrutiny from courts, regulators, European institutions and anti-corruption authorities while preventing organised crime from turning public investment into private revenue. After decades of promises, that would be a more meaningful test of whether Italy can finally build its bridge than another declaration that construction is about to begin. For now, the Strait remains crossed by ferries. And the bridge remains a political project trying to become an infrastructure project.
