Rome dismisses operator’s €500m Genoa bridge recovery offer
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Italy’s coalition government has reacted sceptically to an initial offer of €500m from Italy’s biggest motorway operator Autostrade per l’Italia for building work and compensation after the collapse of a motorway bridge in Genoa killed 43 people.
Matteo Salvini, deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League, called it “a minimum wage offer”. Luigi Di Maio, leader of the Five Star Movement and the other deputy prime minister, said the state would not accept “charity” from Autostrade.
“We demand credible redress and there will be no bartering,” Mr Di Maio said.
Last week’s collapse of the Morandi viaduct led to recriminations from government figures against Autostrade, the road operator maintaining the motorway, and the Benetton family, which owns more than 30 per cent of Autostrade’s parent company Atlantia. Shares in Atlantia fell more than 20 per cent after Rome threatened to revoke Autostrade’s licence.
After a state funeral on Saturday for some of the victims of the collapse Giovanni Castellucci, Autostrade’s chief executive, said the company had established a fund for the “immediate needs of the victims, to be administered by the municipality”, and a compensation fund for all those who had lost their houses.
While expressing “profound sadness”, Mr Castellucci did not take responsibility for the accident on behalf of Autostrade. He pointed out that the bridge was built in the 1960s, by another entity and said an “in-depth investigation” was needed to establish fault.
The bridge could be rebuilt in steel within eight months, Mr Castelluci said. He said the initial costs for structural work and compensation would quickly reach €500m.
Autostrade’s board of directors is to meet in Rome on Tuesday and Atlantia’s board will meet on Wednesday, a spokesman for Atlantia said.
On Sunday Giancarlo Giorgetti, undersecretary at the prime minister’s office, told Il Messaggero newspaper that Rome now planned a nationwide infrastructure maintenance overhaul “of unprecedented scale”, covering schools, aqueducts, trains and motorways, as well areas of geological risk.
Mr Giorgetti suggested the plan would be financed irrespective of budget constraints. “On this front there are no deficits, GDP, or fixed European boundaries — we are convinced that the [EU] will be benevolent,” he said.
Mr Salvini had questioned after the bridge collapse whether EU spending constraints had hindered investment — a suggestion rejected by Brussels.
The government formally began the process to revoke the licence from Autostrade on Friday, despite warnings that it could have to pay the company €15bn and €20bn to recompense its loss of earnings over the remainder of its concession — which has two decades to run — unless the company was found to be at clear fault.
Transport minister Danilo Toninelli, also of Five Star, said the ministry had sent a letter to the company, giving it 15 days to submit proof of steps taken to ensure safety and maintenance.
The government has announced €33m funding to manage the state of emergency, which Giuseppe Conte, prime minister said was for “urgent works” to make the road network and transport system viable, and to find accommodation for the 600 people made homeless by the collapse.
Authorities at the weekend revised the death toll from the collapse to 43 after reaching the end of the search operation in the remnants of the bridge, which gave way on Tuesday during heavy rain.
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