The measure revoking the TAV arrangements, made in private negotiations by the previous government, is neither illegitimate nor arrogant as claimed in the open letter published on payment by the Associazione Imprese Generali (AGI) in some of the press.
The problem, for the stretches whose arrangements have been revoked, is not in the tender arrangements for the work, but in finding the more than 12,000,000,000 Euro needed. Placing the attention on other matters is useless.
This is what I and the Minister for Economic Development, Pierluigi Bersani have made clear in reply to AGI’s letter published in Il Corriere della Sera, Il Sole 24 ore and La Repubblica.
The letter says that the action of revoking will put off the completion of the work and make Italy lose out on contributions from the European Union of more than 2,000,000,000, that it will discourage investment of foreign capital in Italy and expose the country to the risk of being marginalized in a European context.
They are statements that are simply false.
Making the work open to competition will not mean that time is lost, because the tender process can be held in the time period still needed to finance these infrastructures.
The idea of losing the Community finance is an instrumental threat as the contributions available for our country have already been allocated.
Clear rules and transparent competitions can only attract investors, Italian and foreign, who will finally be in a condition to compete on an equal footing with the current monopolies.
We only risk being marginalized in Europe if we continue to stay outside of European rules and procedures and accepting costs for public works that are not comparable to those common in Europe.