12/03/2004 (Agence Europe) - The withdrawal by the European Parliament of the bridge over the Messina Straits from the list of priority trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) projects (by 231 votes to 198, with 17 abstentions) has given rise to divergent opinions among Italian MEPs. The co-president of the Greens/EFA group, Monica Frassoni, is delighted that the plenary has rejected the 'megalomaniac' project, which is environmentally unsustainable, and this is echoed by Democratici di sinistra MEPS Claudio Fava and Gianni Pittella, who comment that the withdrawal was approved by MEPs from five political groups and all fifteen Member States. Giuseppe Di Lello and Luisa Morgantini comment in q press release that the project had never been subjected to an environmental impact study, as Van Miert himself admitted to MEPs (Van Miert penned the TEN-T report). EUR 80 million have already been wasted on this project, they point out. In the Forza Italia group, MEP Giorgio Lisi is furious that the Italian left has blindly followed an antagonistic logic rather than playing a team game. He said that the ball was now in the Council's court, and he did not expect the Council to follow the EP's views in this area. (In Rome, the Italian transport minister Pietro Lunardi said that the EP vote bore no influence on the Italian government's decision to build the bridge.)