EU denies its budget cuts agenda contributed to Genoa disaster
EU CHIEFS sought to deny today that years of crippling budget cuts imposed on Italy could be responsible for the collapse of a Genoa motorway bridge with the loss of at least 39 lives earlier this week.
Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said that Italy would increase infrastructure spending to tackle dangerously degraded bridges and roads even if doing so breached EU rules.
EU spokesman Christian Spahr retorted that the 2014-2020 EU budget plan earmarks €2.5 billion for Italian network infrastructure spending and claimed that “the EU has encouraged investment in infrastructure.”
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