If the association of European ports ESPO welcomed the final green light given yesterday by the European Parliament the inclusion of maritime transport in the EU ETS, the European Emissions Trading
( of
18 April 2023), however - commenting today on the passage of the new rules at the Strasbourg Assembly - the European Sea Ports Organisation reiterated its concern from the scope of the new gas emission rules greenhouse produced by ships, since - he again emphasized ECSA - this could lead shipowners to their ships evading calls at ports where they can avoid be subject to payment under the ETS, for example by adding a port call outside the Union European or by reorganizing its routes.
Highlighting that this poses a threat to the credibility and effectiveness of the ETS, ESPO urged again the European Commission to start an action of monitoring and prevention in order to avoid relocation of carbon emissions from maritime transport. The association of European ports has reiterated that a timely action in this sense is crucial given that changes that could occur in port traffic and maritime traffic would be almost impossible to change once they have occurred.
While appreciating the efforts of the European co-legislators to The definition of "port of call" excludes stopovers of ships in container transhipment ports close to EU territory, ESPO reiterated again that this does not it will be sufficient for the circumvention not to have place. In the opinion of the association, the monitoring of changes of maritime traffic should not only take into account ports close to the EU whose container traffic is consists of more than 65% of the total of transhipped containers, but rather it should take into account what happens in all ports close to the European Union.