Work in Piedmont's Susa Valley
on the controversial TAV Turin-Lyon high-speed rail link is set
to resume, Telt, the Italian-French company tasked with
constructing and running the line, said on Wednesday.
"The Chiomonte worksite is following the planned schedule,"
Telt Director General Mario Virano said at an intergovernmental
conference on the project.
"The work on the base tunnel in Italy will start in 2021".
Virano said Telt's board would authorise the signing of a
contract for another tunnel on Thursday.
Work on the Italian side was held up due to doubts in Premier
Giuseppe Conte's first government over whether to continue with
the project, which has been subject to intense and sometimes
violent protests.
The 5-Star Movement (M5S) has long been against the TAV on
cost and environmental grounds.
But Conte eventually decided that the project should go ahead
as it would cost more to halt it than let it go ahead and a bid
by the M5S to stop the TAV was rejected by parliament in August.
The vote proved decisive in League leader Matteo Salvini's
decision to pull the plug on the alliance with the M5S that
supported the first Conte government.
That led to the M5S forming a new pact that also features the
centre-left Democratic Party (PD) for the 'Conte Two' executive.
Iveta Radicova, the European Coordinator for the
Mediterranean Corridor, said that "nothing has changed" for the
EU and that "the Turin-Lyon is a priority".
"We behaved with the utmost respect for the governments," she
added.
"We did not apply pressure, but it is undeniable that the
Italian government has lost 18 months.
"We have to get down to work and accelerate".
Piedmont Governor Alberto Cirio, meanwhile, said he has set
up a special TAV committee to overcome "the government's
inertia", blasting its failure to appoint a new commissioner for
the project.
"We have 41 million euros' worth of related side projects
that cannot start and we don't intend to wait any more," he
said.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
