The Turin-Lyon TAV is heading towards rejection. The news had been in the air for weeks, given that the committee of six experts appointed by the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Danilo Toninelli and led by the professor of the Milan Polytechnic Marco Ponti he is notoriously and for some time averse to grand opera (five out of six members have already expressed and justified their opposition in the past), but the indiscretion of its alleged officiality is given by the Bloomberg agency, quoting sources close to the dossier. The expected cost-benefit analysis would therefore have given a negative result, according to Bloomberg: the work, which provides in particular the discussed railway tunnel of 57,5 km between Italy and France (6 of which have already been completed, in French territory), it is not economically viable.
According to Bloomberg it is therefore "a great victory for the 5 Star Movement", which has always been hostile to the creation of an infrastructure largely financed by the EU and which has already passed seven cost-benefit analyzes since 2000 made by different subjects, all with positive results. A recent Bocconi study has even estimated that the temporary or definitive blockage of the Turin-Lyon cross-border section would lead to a loss of economic benefits of over 20 billion euros, considering only the first 50 years of the work's life. Toninelli at the moment denies that “the cost-benefit analysis on the Turin-Lyon high-speed train has been completed. When it is actually completed and shared with interested stakeholders, it will naturally be published, in compliance with that principle of transparency that we have always observed”.
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The one commissioned by the pentastellato minister is therefore the eighth cost-benefit study: it is not surprising that it could (according to Bloomberg) be the first to give a negative result, given that Toninelli himself has often repeated that he is against the Turin-Lyon high-speed line because it would harm the local community and cost too much. In any case, a final decision by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport on whether the works will continue is expected only at a later stage, after a review of the administrative burdens which would imply blocking the Tav (which have been estimated at two billion euros, in addition to the aforementioned economic damage). Meanwhile, however, in December the ministry asked Telt, the Italian-French company that is building the line, to postpone the publication of new tenders until next year. The connection, which according to plans should be operational in 2030, will cost a total of 8,6 billion, of which only a third goes to Italy: it will allow to go from Milan to Paris by train in 4 hours and to carry out at least 30% of freight traffic by rail, as required by the Paris COP21 agreements.
