Entrepreneurs, professionals, trade unions, shopkeepers: the productive world is in revolt against the halt to the Turin-Lyon high speed railway decreed by the motion passed in the city council in the Piedmontese capital. The Region, led by Sergio Chiamparino, has decided to promote a referendum while two agendas have been approved in favor of the work and which commit the regional council to take action against the interruption of work on the line.
The city is split, the government divided in half like the CGIL itself which in Rome supports the usefulness of the High Speed Train and in Turin takes sides against the work. And the battle is more open than ever.
Sergio Chiamparino, governor of the Piedmont region, forcefully stated: "If the government blocks the work and Parliament approves the blockade, I will find every way, at the Piedmontese and Northern Italy level, to make the will of the people of the region heard , for the majority, is in favor of the opera. Otherwise I will ask the Piedmontese if they are in favor of an unfortunate decrease". To the Northern League team of the government, Chiamparino says: “There are no Serie A works and Serie B works. For Salvini, the Pedemontana is fine, the Third Pass will be done, and then when it comes to Tav he says “We'll see”, that's enough! ”.
CGIL SPLIT
In support of the battle against the construction of the Tav, the CGIL has lined up, which however is split: the Turin one voted the no-Tav motion during its congress and re-proposed its position during the vote in the regional council, but the national one says in favor of building the infrastructure.
ACCOUNTANTS AND OTHER ASSOCIATIONS
The pentastellata junta led by Chiara Appendino is provoking the reaction of the productive forces: “We can no longer remain silent. It's time to raise your voice and take to the streets. In a few days we lost the opportunity to host the 2016 Games and now we risk losing the investments for the Tav. We are not playing this game”, says Luca Asvisio, president of the Turin accountants' association, who in an interview he also speaks to Corriere on behalf of the other manufacturing associations in the region. Together with them he is ready to deploy an army of over 40.000 demonstrators, determined to take to the streets to support the infrastructure and avoid paralysis not only of the Tav but of the entire production area.
Confindustria
From the assembly of industrialists of Confindustria in Ivrea, the president of Confindustria Vincenzo Boccia lashed out against the “interest groups who want to block everything, because their idea is total flattening, and we will not allow them to do this. We reject the vision of an Italy on the periphery of Europe, that of infrastructures is a national question”. In the case of the Tav, for example, the impact of the infrastructure "on GDP is around 9 billion euros, three times the investment". For this reason, the national council of Confindustria will be held in Turin and the Piedmontese capital "will be the symbol of the growth issue for the country".
THE DIVIDED GOVERNMENT
The vertical division is more open than ever even within the executive. The two deputy premiers, practically simultaneously from two different cities, provided the following version of the government's policy: "I am always and in any case in favor of infrastructure. But there is a commitment to re-evaluate how much the TAV costs and is worth. So let's wait". Thus the Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, on the sidelines of the Confitarma assembly.
Therefore, if on the one hand Salvini tries to buy time in order not to reach the crisis with the M5S ally, on the other hand, Luigi Di Maio confirms the pentastellata closing in a press conference in Turin: "When we wrote the government contract we the re-discussion of the Tav project has been added. Our intention is not to take away investments from Turin but to spend to make works not to make works to spend money. I am against an infrastructure that is being built to spend money. We have always been critical and will continue to be so.'
PARIS DENIES TONINELLI
For his part, the Minister of Infrastructure Danilo Toninelli makes his voice heard from Rome and states: "We will agree with France not to make the Tav. I understand that Macron excluded it from the infrastructure priorities precisely after assessing the costs and benefits. And it has not allocated resources to finance the route from the tunnel to Lyon”, promptly denied by France.
In an interview with Corriere della Sera, the vice president of the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region stresses that for Paris the "tunnel is not in question". "France wants to go ahead, President Emmanuel Macron has no intention of going back on his word and repeated several times even in the context of international agreements", says Etienne Blanc who has the delegation to follow the work of the Tav. Finally the government commissioner Paolo Foietta explains that the agenda of the Turin city council "is only a political act, it has no effect on the authorization process which has already been completed".
