From Roman aqueducts to the Eiffel Tower to Moscow’s Metro, throughout history elites have presented major public projects as symbols of national greatness. Unlike “appearance-based” monuments, such projects aim to unite their scale and functionality to create national emblems and validate the efficiency of the political class. Modern times are not immune to this practice: the Kanal Istanbul project announcement and the “Sicily Bridge,” explored here, are coherent examples.
The proposal to connect Sicily to mainland Italy through a bridge across the Strait of Messina is not a novelty in the Italian political landscape. This idea has circulated among decision-makers since the unification period, although it was abandoned due to financial and structural concerns. After a long-lasting bureaucratic and political discourse dating back to the 1960s which involved doubts, instrumentalisations, and sudden route changes according to the vision of different governments, 2025 marked the arrival of the construction plan’s preliminary confirmation, deemed a historical milestone by the Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini.
The overly celebrative storytelling about the approval, paradoxically spread by the same political groups which used to oppose it, is directly linked to the project’s previous tribulations and the current government’s desire for grandeur. In fact, the bridge now serves as a megaphone for the governing coalition to collect and amplify certain messages. For example, Salvini repeatedly announced on social media that there is an intent to revive a “past glory” by replicating Roman infrastructures; moreover, he stated that a hypothetical “mafia defeat” would come from regional development and the alleged creation of 120,000 jobs prompted by the bridge project.
The reality is, at best, quite far from such idealised representations. Rumors that organised crime may infiltrate the construction have sparked out even from Meloni’s right-wing coalition members. According to Member of Parliament Calderone, the bridge’s realisation will involve great investments, which can increase the risk of corruption in the local administration and of criminal organizations infiltrating public tenders. Concerning the job creation estimates, they have been prudently revised by some observers. Additionally, several “no-bridge” groups have attracted more support since the latest project approval. Their many protests underscore the creation of a rather odd circumstance for Sicily and Calabria regions, where a pompous and expensive bridge is supposed to coexist with numerous ignored internal viability problems.
Despite divergent opinions, one thing is certain: if built, the Sicily Bridge would become the longest suspension bridge in Europe. Such a record represents a great victory for the government, which aims to be remembered for achieving it regardless of the actual impact the bridge can have.
Two main factors can explain why Salvini and the ruling coalition need this victory as a political communication tool. To begin with, the bridge would boost the League party’s current status. Initially denominated Northern League, this group sustained Northern Italy’s independence in the past. Salvini’s shift from strictly regional to national identitarianism, connected to the steady support loss since his power apex in 2018-2019, shows how an attempt to regain support can be made by reshaping the Messina Bridge into a symbol of commitment in favour of the proverbially neglected Southern regions.
Moreover, the party’s instability is worsened by the increasing popularity of Roberto Vannacci, a former army officer and current member of the European Parliament, whose political career has been endorsed by Salvini himself and who can now challenge his role. The successful construction of the bridge can, in this case as well, be used to remark Salvini’s leadership and the League’s success.
The second factor is the recent NATO agreement, in which members agreed to increase their defense budgets to 5% of their gross domestic product. Regarding this, Italy is under “special observation” by NATO, as it was among the latest to reach the previous 2% GDP target. Therefore, Italy has been called to resolve a crucial dilemma: on the one side, the need to provide President Trump with guarantees of being able to face the new defense effort; on the other, the obligation to face the lack of financial resources to allocate to the military.
The Messina Bridge, with an approved budget of 13.5 billion euros, has presented Meloni’s government with the occasion to be among the first countries to reach the new infrastructural target (1.5% of the total 5% GDP defense allocation) and to showcase the country’s power without irritating the public opinion any further. Or, at least, so it was thought. As a matter of fact, the idea was met with harsh criticism almost immediately: its dismissal by NATO allies, especially the United States, has caught the Italian government unprepared and forced it to change plans.
Both of these reasons help highlight the government’s aim to make the Sicily Bridge project a strong political tool at all costs, exploiting its perceived aura of greatness and seemingly transforming it into the solution to all problems. A swift cost-benefit analysis tends to a negative balance for the current state of affairs. The possibility to end the bridge’s long path to approval blinded the government, which focused on speeding up the project. Furthermore, the potential losses of the project were underestimated: the harsh criticism of the bridge from the ruling coalition and the general public alongside the failed endeavor to include the bridge building budget in the new NATO target posed unexpected challenges.
While this ongoing process can still evolve positively, the miscalculated negative sociopolitical effects must be acknowledged. Nevertheless, through a sunk cost fallacy, it is unlikely for the project to be stopped at this point: as the Court of Auditors temporarily blocked the project on October 29th due to discrepancies in the project’s authorizations and safety regulations, the government accused it of stalling the bridge’s construction because of pressures by the opposition. Thus, the question persists: are then the political narratives about the bridge more important to the government than the modalities and consequences of its construction?
Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Sicily, Image sourced from Rusi | CC License, no changes made