Today, taking part in the work of the Council of Ministers to the European Union's Environment Conference, in Luxembourg, the Minister of Gilberto Pichetto called for corrective measures from the European directive that from next January-September will include maritime transport within the scope of the system for EU Emissions Trading (EU ETS). Italy - has explained Pichetto - intends to "open a serious discussion and that can lead to concrete initiatives to mitigate some negative effects of inclusion in the ETS of the maritime sector'. The Italian minister announced that It had previously announced its intention to include among the items on the agenda of today's Council a information in order to defend Italian port calls.

"As acknowledged by the Commission itself," he said Pichetto - the solutions adopted to date are not valid for effectively address the problem of redirecting Maritime traffic of goods with transhipment on external routes to the Union, which entails, in addition to undesirable results from the point of view of the from an environmental point of view, serious negative consequences for the same European competitiveness'. "Without modifications," he said. underlined the minister - we are heading towards a certain loss of competitiveness of many European ports of call, and in particular Italians'.

Our country, therefore, believes that the corrective mechanism identified to date "is not Absolutely sufficient." Mr Pichetto made the case on behalf of the the Italian Government's request to the Commission to provide a list of possible corrective measures and stated that the Government ' makes it available for immediate discussion in order to avoid undesirable economic, social and environmental consequences that would result from the application of the current rules'.