(Finance) – “We risk losing the competitiveness of our European ports without benefits for the environment”. He underlined it Matthew Salvini talking about Ets directive which imposes environmental constraints. Result, according to Salvini: ports of the Old Continent disadvantaged compared to those of the North Africa. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister spoke about it during the European Transport Council. “We risk the same problems we are seeing now in the automotive sector” reiterated Salvini, recalling that 90% of the goods arriving in Europe do so by sea.
These are concepts that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister also illustrated during the bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the works: the last face-to-face ones, characterized by lively cordiality and concreteness, were organized with the Dutch minister Barry Madlener and the Swedish colleague Andreas Carlson.
The Italian position has been supported by other countries, so much so that eight states have signed the document presented by Rome: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Greece.
“We ask to stop the ETS system, which includes new taxes and bans, al sector maritime. We risk losing jobs, wealth and traffic to the benefit of non-EU ports, without reducing emissions and pollution at all” underlines Salvini on the sidelines of the works.