New green taxes affecting
Mediterranean ports damage maritime transport and European Union
(EU) competitiveness, Deputy Premier and Transport and
Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini said on Monday.
"The maritime transport sector is strategic for the entire EU,"
Salvini told the EU Transport Council in Brussels, adding:
"Together with the Mediterranean countries we will ask for
attention to be given to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and
new taxes that do not help the environment but damage maritime
transport and EU competitiveness".
Italy is concerned that the extension of the European greenhouse
gas emission allowance trading system to the maritime sector
could have negative effects on some Mediterranean ports such as
Gioia Tauro in the southern Calabria region due to potentially
unfavourable competition from north African ports where the tax
does not apply.
On the ETS, Salvini said "we need to be careful to safeguard our
maritime industry".
Last month it emerged that the EU was considering a measure to
protect Gioia Tauro from unfavourable competition as a
consequence of ETS by extending payment of the green tax to
shipowners that decide to call at North African ports if their
final destination is within the bloc.
"The implementation phase of the ETS directive could present
enormous problems for the future of the port of Gioia Tauro due
to the possible competition from the North African ports of
Tangier and Port Said," said European Parliament vice president
and MEP for the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) Pina Picierno
after a meeting with European Commission Vice-President Maros
Sefcovic.
In its present formulation the directive could threaten "4,500
workers, of whom 2,000 dockers and 2,500 linked to the allied
infrastructure industries," added the president of the Gioia
Tauro port authority, Andrea Agostinelli.
"North African ports are not subject to the new European
(carbon) tax and could steal a large part of the traffic from
the port" in Calabria, which currently handles "over 3.5 million
containers per year", said Agostinelli.
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