At yesterday's meeting of the European Council of Ministers, Transport, Telecommunications and Energy delegations of Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Spain have drawn attention to the possible negative impact on the maritime transport and the competitiveness of European ports the extension of the EU ETS emissions trading scheme to shipping of European Union emissions.

Assarmatori expressed satisfaction with this position of the Italian government: "Reiterating the appeal already expressed in the Transport Councils of December 2023 and last June - commented the president of the Italian shipowners' association, Stefano Messina - Italy has drawn up and presented a document that clearly highlights the critical issues and risks caused by the recent inclusion of the maritime sector in the ETS. As is well known, The Directive does not take into account the specificities of the more fragile segments of the maritime sector, creating high risks of emission transfer, rather than reduction, with a consequent loss of competitiveness and business, in primarily in the transshipment of containers but even in the Motorways of the Sea".

Referring to the measures introduced by the European Commission with the intention to mitigate the risks of loss of competitiveness of the European maritime-port system ( of 17 November and 6 December 2023), Messina stated that 'the Commission European is monitoring these risks with a methodology inadequate, which was accompanied by insufficient corrective actions. In this context, Italy and the other signatory States of the statements reiterated the need for a methodological effective and predictive to monitor the market, and asked the Commission to take action by suggesting corrective actions, such as align the ETS with future global reduction measures of shipping emissions that the IMO is discussing".

"In the public debate that took place in the Council between the Member States - continued the president of Assarmatori - is once again the position of the Nordic countries, broadly supportive of the Commission's approach European, while widespread awareness is now evident among the Mediterranean states of how urgent it is to reverse course with respect to a fragile methodological approach and the will manifests that it does not intervene preventively, despite the alarm bells are many. We consider this convergence: for more than three years now we have been highlighting, at a all levels, such critical issues. We thank the minister Matteo Salvini, Deputy Minister Edoardo Rixi and all the forces Policies that voice demands and concerns of the entire maritime-port cluster for this further step forward to protect the sector. It will be indispensable to concretize the excellent work done over the next year until today".