Stefano Messina has been confirmed as president of Assarmatori

On the occasion of the assembly, Messina focused on on the challenges facing the shipping industry to decarbonize. "The ecological transition, for the sector maritime but also for the whole world of transport and logistics - noted the president of Assarmatori - risks be just a media operation if the objectives will not be calibrated on the technologies actually available. That of the Ecological transition is a great challenge that requires equally great seriousness".

Remembering that for years shipowners have been fully committed to respect the objectives set by the International Maritime Organization in the path of decarbonization of transport maritime and also stressing that shipowners share the spirit of acceleration impressed by the European Union in this Messina, however, has highlighted that the sector asks that the issue be addressed in a reasoned and responsible manner, primarily supporting technological research to identify energy solutions that can be activated in the sector, and start on time the resulting large-scale production of quantities of clean fuels needed for industry and related construction of distribution and storage infrastructures of the same, while encouraging the renewal of fleets or their adaptation to the use of new ecological fuels. 'Fix the objectives without taking into account the available technologies - has observed - it is only a media operation. And establish tax penalties in the absence of alternatives to the use of fossil fuels, it would only serve to raise transport costs, without any counterpart for the community and for the environment'.

Outlining some priorities of the new mandate assigned to them, Messina specified that it is necessary in the first place secure and have the new applied in its entirety aid scheme for maritime enterprises approved by the European Union in June 2020. The president of Assarmatori recalled that it goes in fact completed the legislative and regulatory process of the new regime, which updates the legislation once linked only to the Register International and now extended to the flags of the EU. "A great opportunity - he noted - that, if we know how to seize to full, will serve to revive the Italian maritime occupation (and not only) which remains one of the main objectives of our organisation'.

Among the other future commitments of the president and the new council of the association there is to solicit government, parliament and institutions so that the hand is put in place to the necessary and no longer deferrable work of simplification and thinning out the various bureaucracies that take away competitiveness to the Italian maritime system, ending with the redundant and sometimes vexatious mechanism of certifications concerning both the activity of the ships and that of the seafarers themselves.