"The 50% cut in funds earmarked for the maintenance of provincial roads in Sardinia is yet another slap in the face from the Meloni Government": this is what the President of the Sardinia Region, Alessandra Todde, wrote on her Facebook page, noting at the same time that such a choice represents "an act that severely penalizes our island" (see Alessandra Todde's Facebook page).

His voice joins that of the majority of Italian local administrators, since this is a measure, the one on the cut in funding, that affects, transversally, the different Italian territories from North to South, with consequences, on a practical level, of very difficult management and control. In fact, according to what we learn from the press, it is a measure that would even affect resources already committed and contracted because they were previously agreed with the Ministry of Infrastructure. Therefore, the position of those who maintain that the so-called linear cuts provided for by the Budget Law and subsequently confirmed by the Milleproroghe Decree concerning the funds destined for the extraordinary maintenance of the provincial and metropolitan road network, represent considerable damage for the entire national territory, and especially for territories, such as Sardinia, geographically disadvantaged. First of all, because the maintenance of the road network appears to be essential in order to ensure the safety and functioning of the infrastructure.

Therefore, because consequently, well-maintained and maintained roads have a direct and indirect impact on greater reliability in terms of protection, ensuring if not a complete elimination, at least a significant reduction in accidents. Finally, because in any case, in territories such as Sardinia, with important critical issues in the system of internal connections, which contribute to the isolation of internal areas, the protection and correct maintenance of the road surface appears to be an essential element of cohesion and sustainability.

The choice of the Central Government, which has made "security" in various areas its cornerstone, at least apparently, appears not only to be counter-trend, but also to lack a plausible rationale, as it would seem to compromise the citizens' right to mobility. Even more so when the very choice to disinvest in the secondary road system, very useful as a tool for connecting internal areas and local communities, represents a short-sighted decision. And even more so when the development of internal areas, the enhancement of characteristic villages and the promotion of tourism cannot in any way ignore the presence of adequate infrastructure, in the absence of which any possibility of improvement would appear to be seriously compromised. With every understandable consequence, including economic, given that the Regions, each according to their own availability, will have to make up for the lack.

Cohesion (intended as a policy aimed at reducing disparities in development between regions and strengthening social and territorial integration to promote harmonious and inclusive growth) and sustainable development would not seem to be able to be sacrificed to political choices, since road safety constitutes an inalienable right of citizens that would not seem to be able to be undermined by a cut in expenditure items that is not otherwise justified.

The policy of cuts, linear or non-linear, does not seem to have ever guaranteed any kind of efficiency, and could indeed represent a further element of regression for its territories.

Giuseppina Di Salvatore – Lawyer, Nuoro

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