Genoa and Antwerp form an alliance in order to develop a net of Port European and world-wide Center



Today to Saint George Palace, center of the Harbour Authority of Genoa, is signed a protocol of understanding between the AIVP, the world-wide association of the harbour cities, and the Port Center of Antwerp and Genoa that the objective has to create and to develop in Europe and the world a net of centers of acquaintance of the harbour activities on the model of the Havencentrum Lillo of Antwerp, the first Port Center in Europe that depends on the Province of Antwerp, and Genoa Port Center (GPC), the first initiative of this genre in the Mediterranean.

The memorandum of understanding is signed by the president of the Harbour Authority of Genoa, Luigi Merlo, and from the city council member to the Instruction and juvenile policies of the Province of Genoa, Francesco De Simone, founding agencies of Genoa Port Center, by Philippe Demoulin, general manager of the Havencentrum Lillo, and by Pierre Lecomte, president of AIVP (Association Internationale Villes ET Ports), already president of the port of the Havre.

With the protocol, that three-year-old will have lasted, the partner has engaged himself to strengthen the alliance between the European ports and to diffuse the model to you of the Port Center, the structures that promote the acquaintance of the ports of call by the inhabitants of the harbour cities approaching two worlds that not always have an easy cohabitation. The initiative, that it answers to the addresses of ESPO (European Sea Port Organisation) in favor of politics of the greater social integration between the ports and the respective city territories, has as scope the sharing of experiences, problems and solutions between all the interested subjects to return the ports more attractive and to improve of the relationship with the local communities also being related the students with the harbour trades, in the optical of the professional guideline. Moreover, the valorization of the human and technological competences of the various harbour sites is important.

In particular, the protocol previews that the partner elaborates in agreed way a "Paper of the objectives" that she will define the scopes and the ambitions developed from the existing Port Center, that they once contribute to the development of the program "Port Center Network" with an encounter per year during shareholders' meeting AIVP or the world-wide conference of the Cities and the Ports organized every other year and that the Port Center of Genoa and Antwerp find all the solutions for the practical and exchange of information good on respective the various educational projects and the initiatives and the events of the community to the aim to construct an internal database shared that it will come cetralized from AIVP.

Moreover the agreement previews that the partner agrees solutions in order to implement a project of pedagogical cooperation to define between the Port Center of Antwerp and Genoa, in collaboration with schools or classes of they choice, that they make of their best in order to return the concept of Port Center "mainstream" for the economic cohesion and a social premises, not only for a small number of harbour cities, but wide applied in all the ports, and that at last the own respective contacts and nets to the aim make use of to promote the concept Port Center between the competent ministries in harbour matter in the respective national governments.