«Our exports could certainly be much greater if our goods did not encounter obstacles and additional burdens for overcome the barrier of the Alps". He emphasized this today Andrea Cappa, secretary general of Alsea, the Lombard Association Freight forwarders and hauliers, urging, together to the association of Genoese freight forwarders Spediporto, to keep high attention on the issue of accessibility of Italy to European markets.

Alsea highlighted that Italy recently celebrated the overtaking Japan among the main exporting countries reaching fourth place in the world rankings, testimony to the ability of Italian companies to be competitive on international markets, and that the value of exports represents about 30% of the value of the national GDP, of which 65% of which is the result of exports to European countries. Translated into numbers, over 400 billion euros of domestic product gross Italian income is generated by exports to partners European.

With regard to access to European markets, Cappa 'Switzerland has adopted a policy aimed at road-rail modal shift that is bearing fruit since today about 80% of Italian traffic flows pass through the Swiss territory by rail. Diametrically opposed data - he observed - we record them with Austria where about 75% of the traffic passes on the highways. The result is that Austria introduced a number of restrictions on heavy traffic to and from Italy, from the ban on night transit to the quota of number of vehicles that can pass per hour, so much so that our government in recent months has filed an appeal with the Court of European Justice for violation of EU law, where enshrines the principle of the free movement of goods in the EU. Despite this, those who want to cross Austria encounter considerable inconvenience and an increase in costs. Crossing Switzerland generates less inconvenience but the costs remain extremely high. The situation towards France, with traffic almost exclusively via generates problems related to the maintenance of the existing infrastructure".

The secretary general of Alsea specified that the issue of maintenance affects all the passes with continuous interruptions and Traffic restrictions that penalize Italian goods: "Only in recent weeks - Cappa pointed out - there are works in the tunnel of the Frejus, as well as limitations in the tunnel while Austria has announced for next year traffic restrictions on the Lueg bridge along the motorway of the Brenner". Cappa said that to overcome these difficulties "it is necessary to urgently carry out the works that Europe has planned: from the Brenner railway tunnel to the Turin-Lyon, from the Gotthard motorway to the Chiasso-Seregno to get to the Terzo Valico and the related works, without forgetting all those works to modernize the national railway network to allow the transit of railway wagons according to the standards European Championships".

Suffering from market accessibility problems Ligurian ports are also European. The general manager of Spediporto, Giampaolo Botta, underlined that "the ports of call of our region are efficient and profitable for the coffers of the State. Out of 20 and a half billion euros raised with rights VAT from Italian ports - he explained - six and a half come from Genoa and Savona; if we add to them those collected from La Spezia we reach almost half of the total revenue for the treasury. It is in everyone's interest, therefore, as they point out these numbers, ensure maximum accessibility to them and The issue of infrastructure, in this sense, is central to guarantee and support the economic development of the region. Spediporto - Botta recalled - has been engaged for years in actions underlining the importance of strong integration of the Liguria with central Europe, and thanks to the strengthening of the railway lines, both through digital IT systems and allow operators to be integrated in the best possible way".