FILE PHOTO: The collapsed Morandi Bridge is seen in the Italian port city of Genoa, Italy August 15, 2018. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini/File Photo
August 31, 2018
MARINA DI PIETRASANTA, Italy (Reuters) – The Italian government could strip a national concession from the country’s biggest toll-road operator, Autostrade, after this month’s deadly bridge collapse and reallocate a revised version of it in a European tender, a senior official said on Friday.
The government has already moved to revoke the concession from Autostrade, controlled by infrastructure group Atlantia, after a viaduct on one of its motorways collapsed in the port city of Genoa, killing 43 people.
Cabinet undersecretary Giancarlo Giorgetti, speaking at a conference at a Tuscan seaside town, said the reallocation of the Autostrade concession was one of two options, with the other being for the state to take over the concession.
However, he said he had some “doubts” about the nationalisation option.
(Reporting by Silvia Ognibene; Writing by Mark Bendeich, editing by Steve Scherer)
