Thanks to Mike Maddi from the ITA-SICILY Mailing List

On a rotating basis, Italy will assume the Presidency of the European Union,
in late June  for a six month term.

A 70 billion Euro Infrastructure Plan worked out by Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti, and sponsored by Italy, is an attempt to both stimulate the European economy, and improve the European transportation network.

One of those projects is a North South Transportation Corridor, running the length of Italy, to Sicily, and would be THE link between Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Another, is the East West Corridor, from France to East Europe. The version important to Italy, would run south of the Alps, through Northern Italy. The alternative version would go north of the Alps, through southern Germany and northern Austria.

[Additional on it's own, Italy has created IPSA, a national agency for infrastructure, based explicitly on the model of the post-war reconstruction agency in Germany.]
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EURO-ZONE FINANCE MINISTERS HAVE AGREED TO EXTRA 70 BILLION EURO INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING PLAN, states the German daily {Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung}, quoting government sources. Already at the upcoming European Union summit, taking place end of next week in Greece, the EU heads of states will most likely approve the plan worked out by Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti.

(Germany has) signaled their support...as long as the financing is done through the European Investment Bank (EIB) and therefore doesn't affect any member state's budget deficit.

Tremendous activity is taking place to get the program started. On June 12, the Italian government, taking over the European Union presidency at the end of the month, will publish the details of its investment plan. On June 20, the EIB will start a new loan program for Transeuropean infrastructure projects... Among the top priorities, according to reports, will be the Brenner transit and the upgrading of the Danube route Straubing-Vilshofen....there will also be increased funding for technology and research programs...
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The following article appears in the June 13, 2003 issue of
Executive Intelligence Review.

Italy Takes the Initiative for European Infrastructure Growth
by Claudio Celani

...The international depression has badly hit Euroland's economies, and the European Union governments realize that something must be done.... the attitude against state intervention in the economy is changing and even the EU's infamous Stability Pact is no longer a sacred cow.

According to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, France and Italy are firmly convinced that the deficit constraints of the Stability Pact must be revisited...

The Netherlands and Spain oppose the initiative, and Germany is stuck in the middle.

Rome has announced that it will propose, when it begins its semester as EU chair on July 1, that EU member-states' budget spending for infrastructure be exempted from the budget deficit limits, and therefore not regulated under the Stability Pact...

Reports Corriere, "The idea is to decouple long-term, large-scale public investments from the deficit accounting...

Model Infrastructure Financing Agency

... (To further such) development... the national agency for infrastructure, Infrastrutture Spa (Ispa), (was created) based explicitly on the model of the
post-war reconstruction agency in Germany, the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau.... Ispa, ...with a credit rating of AAA, will allow Ispa to issue EU 21 billion in credits,...

In his first interview as Ispa chairman, Monorchio told the pro-government daily Il Secolo, that Italy needs a decade of infrastructure investments. The country needs to fill a 20-year-old gap during which no major infrastructure has been built. Monorchio calculated that 100-150 major projects in transportation, water management, port, and other infrastructures, were immediately necessary.

...Ispa... can issue bonds which are guaranteed by the state. ...

Italy's Role in International Development

...Monorchio explained the importance of national infrastructure for the role Italy must play as a European extension towards the Middle East, the crossroads of Africa and Eurasia. The high-speed railway line, now reaching southward to Naples, will be further extended, Monorchio said. "The government decision to build the Messina Bridge [to Sicily] makes high-speed railway indispensable there also.

See, beyond all polemics, the Messina Bridge is, from an economic standpoint, a step forward, from Europe towards the African coast and Eastern Mediterranean.... Its validity lies not in the unification of Sicily with the rest of Italy, which is already relevant, but in what this could represent for Italy in its relationship with Europe and the rest of the world...

(Also)" Of vital importance for Italy is European Corridor #5, a transportation project connecting the Iberian peninsula through France, south of the Alps and across the highly industrialized northern Italian regions of Piedmont, Lombardy, and Veneto, with Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

This is a project included in the list of EU priorities, in terms of financing, but has so far been neglected, in favor of a corridor north of the Alps, that would cut Italy off. The Rome government is aware that previous delays by Italy have played a role sending the project into a stall, and is now committed to making up for lost time. The main bottlenecks in this corridor are the tunnels beneath the mountains between France and Italy, and the highway around Venice, where trucks are forced to wait in queues for as long as five hours. In this region, the planned doubling of the transport capacities will increase productivity directly by 50%, Monorchio said.

Italy can face what he called the international recession, he explained, "because, since we lack infrastructure and have a concrete possibility to push economic growth through such works, Italy can grow better and more quickly than others.

Infrastructure is the most important thing we have for the recovery. "As a Southern Italian, I have had a dream: That our country, and in particular its southern part, could become what California has been for the Americans. Italy must be the California of the Europeans."

Italy Takes the Initiative for European Infrastructure Growth
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3023italy_infra_fnd.html