Press Release
Pacifists to Draghi: 'No to the new maxi barracks. Pisa remains a symbol of Peace'

The NGO Un Ponte Per is against the new military citadel wanted by the government: a huge concrete casting inside the regional park, thanks to PNRR funds.

Pisa, 11 April 2022 - The news came a fortnight ago in Pisa. The alarm was raised by the 'Una Città in Comune' civic list: the Draghi government has decided to use part of the PNRR funds to build a military citadel at Coltano that will cover 730 thousand square metres of protected area inside the San Rossore regional park, with 440 thousand cubic metres of new buildings. A project worth hundreds of millions of euro, intended to build shooting ranges, a landing strip for helicopters, barracks, training centres, swimming pools, terraced houses and much more, to serve three armed corps: the Special Intervention Group (GIS), the Tuscania parachutist regiment and the dog-killing unit stationed in Pisa.

Pisa is a city with a strong pacifist vocation, home to the coordination of the Network of Universities for Peace, where dozens of male and female students graduate in Peace Sciences every year, yet the government evidently seems to have other plans.

The NGO 'Un Ponte Per' expresses outrage at a decision taken by presidential decree, skipping ordinary procedures and thus avoiding even considering the opinion of the Natural Park. Park Authority President Biani had already expressed a negative assessment of the project to the Committee for the Regulation of Military Servitudes (CoMiPar) a year ago. A project that Biani still assesses as 'devastating' in terms of environmental impact.

Then no one spoke about it any more and the Defence decided to proceed without consulting either the Region of Tuscany or Biani. On the other hand, the San Rossore park is the most militarised protected area in Italy, already hosting two firing ranges, the headquarters of the Inter-Forces Centre for Military Applications Studies (Cisam), the Col Moschin Incursor Training Centre and the Army Special Forces Command, which was inaugurated two years ago and cost the State 42 million euro. Not to mention the recently expanded American base at Camp Darby.

We wonder how it is possible that the Draghi government - while increasing military spending to 2% of GDP - decides without opposition to divert PNRR resources from Italy's economic recovery (and ecological transition) to military infrastructure, to the detriment of the ecosystem of a park that should generate sustainable tourism. This is the umpteenth proof that military spending, besides raising tensions by generating flows of armaments and troops to countries at war, is directly detrimental to the economic and ecological well-being of our territories. Many political forces and associations in Tuscany have realised this and are mobilising to oppose this project: a convergence of pacifist and ecologist instances, refusing any 'compensation' with other projects that benefit the park.

Un Ponte Per joins them in condemning the project and instead asks the government to keep faith with other commitments that have been made and reaffirmed many times, but never respected: to reach 0.7% of the Gross National Income in Public Aid for Development(now it is 0.22%), increasing the funds for cooperation, dedicating resources to civil peacebuilding projects in fragile states, and completing the experimentation of the Civil Peace Corps within the Universal Civil Service.

We want Pisa to remain a forge of peace, the city in which volunteers and cooperators are trained and which develops many of our peacebuilding programmes, peace education, and support for the participation of women and young people in peace processes. For the security of Europe we need less weapons and barracks, more cooperation and peace operations built by civil society.