The ESPO exhorts the EU to make sure that the measures for the reduction of the polluting emissions do not compromise the competitiveness of the European ports



The European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO) has introduced today a document in which it synthetizes the opinion of the European ports about the strategy of the EU in matter of polluting emissions that has the objective to make of Europe the first region to zero emissions within 2050, ambitious purpose that the association of the European ports has emphasized to share and to receive with favor, specifying but that such result must be achieved in the more effective way and safeguarding the competitiveness of the European economy, objective - it has found the ESPO - the whose attainment will unprecedented demand a level of cooperation between all the political organisms and all the interested parts.

In its Position Paper, introduced to Brussels in the course of the seminary "Decarbonising the shipping industry: what's already happening and how can we help accelerated IT" organized from the ESPO with the association of European shipowners ECSA in the within of the Europan Shipping Week the 2020, European Sea Ports Organisation explains that the reduction of the environmental impact of the field of the marine transport is a priority for the European ports and that these are engaged to make own part in order to help the marine field to complete this transition. "It is necessary - the document evidences - a grip cooperation between the ports and the companies of navigation. This cooperation depends also in wide part from the decisions of the producers of energy, the suppliers of energy and the owners of the goods".

Observing that the European ports are different and that therefore in topic of reduction of the pollution a single type of valid approach for all the ports cannot be tax, the precise ESPO to consider that every port, in order to prepare itself for the energetic transition of the marine transport, would have to plan an own schedule adapted to own peculiarities. Moreover, second the association, to the aim to assure that the marine transport introduces the cleaned fuel use, supports the innovation and avoids the waste of resources, is necessary an approach based on the neutral objectives and from the technological point of view.

Examining the participations in order to reduce the emissions of the entire chain of the marine transport that more involve the ports, the ESPO emphasizes the necessity to develop to a gradual approach for the reduction of the emissions produced from the ships to the mooring in dock, focusing initially the initiatives on the docks that are next to the city areas and focusing also the attention on specific segments of the marine transport as those of the cruises and the ferries. Specifying that these measures in order to reduce the emissions in dock are not in itself sufficient to obtain the decarbonizzazione of the shipping, the ESPO it clarifies that however the objective to annul the emissions in dock is approachable and that within the 2030 emissions of co2 of the ships to the mooring and in the ports they would have to be reduced medium of 50% and this in all the fields of the marine transport. The association evidences therefore the necessity, which part of the solution, to encourage the adoption of the systems of cold ironing in order allowing with the ships that reach in the European ports of being able itself to connect to the net terrestrial electrical worker and therefore to extinguish the edge generators, but emphasizes the necessity meanwhile to encourage and to allow the adoption of solutions alternatives that reach the same objectives.

The Position Paper of the ESPO rimarca also the necessity to recognize the liquified natural gas as fuel useful to allow the energetic transition and to assure the support to the relative investments carried out from 2021 until at least 2027.

The association exhorts also the EU to emphasize the pressures on the International Maritime Organization (IMO) so that it adopts concrete measures within 2023 as - the ESPO observes - given the international nature of the field of the marine transport, for the success of measures based on the market is essential a global approach.

In the Position specific Paper that any European proposal as that of a system of exchange of quotas emissions, or of a taxation or a bottom for the innovation would have to be carefully examined to the aim to safeguard the competitiveness of the European harbour field.