Construction work on a £3.8billion suspension bridge linking the Italian mainland to Sicily is due to begin at the end of the year.
If built, the link will break the world span record for a suspension bridge, at more than 10,800ft (3,300m).
Plans for a bridge across the Strait of Messina had been in the offing for years before the idea was ditched in 2013.
In 2022, Italy’s government announced it would revive the scheme and ask the European Union to help pay for it.
A new funding proposal put forward by the construction company behind the plans, Società Stretto di Messina (SdM) and the Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency of the European Commission, was agreed upon this week.
It will see Brussels meeting half of the design costs of the project, amounting to almost £21million (€25 million), according to Euronews.
But not everyone is thrilled by the prospect of the crossing, with environmentalists fearing its impact on local ecosystems and others suggesting it will be a huge waste of public money.
Critics also claim the bridge will be risky given its location in a zone prone to seismic activity – despite its being designed to withstand 7.1-magnitude earthquakes.
Estimates suggest the bridge will take seven years to build. It will have three lanes in each direction, as well as a railway line running down the middle.
It is designed to withstand winds up to 180mph and the workforce needed to build it amounts to some 4,300, according to SdM.
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s infrastructure minister, in remarks published by euronews, said in September: “The trans-shipment of ferries, in addition to pollution and time wasting, costs people more in a year than it would cost to build the bridge.”
He said the government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Italy’s parliament have the ambition to build “this blessed project”.
The idea for a bridge linking Sicily to the Italian mainland reportedly dates back to Roman times. Italy’s Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini proposed a bridge in the last century.
Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi revived the idea in the early 2000s, but it was shelved as part of Italy’s austerity cuts in 2013.
Supporters of the scheme say the bridge will ease pressure on the ferry service which currently connects Sicily to Italy’s Calabria region and help boost the island’s economy.
