The Regional Union of Chambers of Commerce of Calabria has associated with the alarm about the consequences of the new Directive including maritime transport in the EU ETS trading of allowances of the European Union's carbon allowances, which will enter into force on 1 January, and will be able to have on the future of the port of Gioia Tauro, as the new norm additional costs, in particular for vessels operating stopovers in European transhipment ports such as the Calabria, avoidable expenses if ships call at transhipment ports non-Europeans.

On the eve of the flash mob "The port doesn't stop" which will be held tomorrow in Gioia Tauro to avert the risk closure of the port, Unioncamere Calabria specified that 'the Calabrian Chamber of Commerce system, giving voice to the region's economy, joins the alarm sounded by politics and the world on the possible consequences of the new directive on the carbon tax on the future of the port of Gioia Tauro".

Explaining that the tax introduced by the Directive, in this first formulation, it should be counted at 100% if the ship is travelling Between two European countries, 50% only one is touched, and even zero if, while crossing the Mediterranean, it does not stop in ports of the EU, the president of Unioncamere Calabria, Antonino Tramontana, stressed that "the introduction of this new tax could hit our port hard, exposing it concretely to the possibility of being overridden in favour of other transhipment ports outside Europe, present for example on the coasts of North Africa, where it would not be possible to applied the new tax'.

Unioncamere Calabria pointed out that "the port of Gioia Tauro is a very positive emerging reality, which Today it has an excellent infrastructural endowment and offers services, including intermodality (80 trains per day). The current situation - recalled the Union of the regional Chambers of Commerce - derives from significant investments (for example, To name a few: public procurement in the last 20 years for 179 million euros; Investments by terminal operators in the last 10 years EUR 230 million), while the same amount of funding is being made for further improve road accessibility and railway station, as well as, for example, for the environmental sustainability, through the electrification of the Ro-Ro quay, to reduce the impact of ships parked in the port'.

"The consequences of an eventual, even partial, abandonment of the port of Gioia Tauro - warned Tramontana - would be significant in terms of economics, employment and logistics not only regional, but of the entire country. There is no need to remind you of the difficulties of the region when assessing the impact of jeopardise direct employment that currently matters 1,600 port workers and which produces a turnover of about 4,000 unit. The fight against climate change - concluded the President of Unioncamere Calabria - it is a dutiful and which must be of interest to all the equally, avoiding the introduction of rules that would alter the the rules governing the balance between supply and demand of a the entire economic sector'.