Once he returned to Siracusa, De Benedictis finished the project, which was sent to Brussels on the 20th of September 1994.
A long time passed without any news from the Commision regarding the proposals made by the participating cities, which were many.
On a morning in April 1996 I received a phone call from the Director General’s secretary, who informed me that SIracusa’s project had not been accepted. Other cities had taken precedence, it was said, because of their more critical social conditions, such as Palermo and Catania in Sicily.
I thanked her for the information but, having built a good working relationship with her over the years, thanks to the many meetings about the Urban projects I had been at, I asked her to read the project for Siracusa anyway..
I will never forget the surprise of receiving another phone call from her on the evening of that same day, around 10 pm. She apologised right away for phoning so late but she had read the project on Siracusa. “It's Beautiful”, she said, adding that she had spoken about it with the General Director and that they had decided to try and have it approved. They were going to speak to the German ambassador and they suggested I also speak to the Italian one. In the European Union, ambassadors are the permanent representatives of their respective States, and hold special powers.
And so we did. The European Union expanded the number of accepted cities, adding some more and including Siracusa with its project on Ortigia, which was approved on the 12th of December 1996.
In the early phases of the project, I came to several meetings at Siracusa with Assessore De Benedictis and with other interested economic and social parties, and was struck by their appreciation of the project.
Years later, coming to Siracusa, the owners of a bookstore and a restaurant, who most certainly didn’t know me, told me that the city was experiencing a notable reawakening. “You know - they said - we’ve been lucky here, because the European Union approved our Urban project.”.
I left Brussels in 1998 but my new role included another few trips there.
I had the opportunity of meeting the people responsible for the Urban Project. They told me they had been extremely happy to have made that exception to include Siracusa among the chosen cities, as the one on Ortigia had proved to be one of the most interesting projects.
February 2021