Matteo Salvini revives ancient dream of building bridge to Sicily

Italy's infrastructure minister says plan is one of his goals, despite cost, impracticability and seismic risk

Just days after being nominated Italian infrastructure minister, Matteo Salvini has revived the ancient and controversial dream to build a gigantic, multi-billion-euro bridge linking Sicily to the mainland, in one of the areas with the highest seismic risk in Europe.

On Monday, Salvini, the leader of the League, a junior partner in a far-right coalition that won September's general election, told the Italian state broadcaster Rai he would put in motion the long-discussed plan of linking Messina to Reggio Calabria, despite the fact that the project was repeatedly rejected by previous governments because of high costs, engineering impracticability and environmental impact.