The Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security has expressed a favourable opinion on the Application for Impact Assessment relating to the project presented in May 2023 for the construction of the tourist-cruise port of Fiumicino - Isola Sacra carried out by the Fiumicino Waterfront Srl subsidiary by Cruise Terminals International (CTI), a company under its 90% owned by funds managed by iCON Infrastructure and 10% by the American cruise group Royal Caribbean. In his pronouncement, which represented the last procedural step to implementation of the project, the dicastery expressed "judgment positive on the environmental compatibility of the project» as well as the preliminary land and rock management plan by authorizing "the immersion in the sea of the material deriving from excavation activities".

The project, included among those related to the celebrations of the Jubilee for 2025, is opposed by citizens' committees and by environmental associations but also by the Municipality of Civitavecchia who expressed "amazement and deep concern" for the final go-ahead for the Ministry's project proposal of the Environment and, recalling the "environmental criticalities very heavy, anything but marginal" highlighted by committees, associations and citizens, underlined in a note that "The reports from the committees speak for themselves: The work insists on an extremely fragile stretch of coast, with potentially disruptive effects on the equilibrium of the mouth of the Tiber, currents, coastal erosion and the ecosystem. Documented and timely concerns, which would have required extra caution, not a procedural acceleration".

According to the municipal administration of Civitavecchia, moreover, 'The authorisation of a large private port constitutes a very serious institutional precedent: it means legitimizing a model in which private entities can design infrastructure for national importance in direct competition with public ones, altering the balances that law and planning have built over decades. It means admitting that speculative logics can prevail over the coordinated development strategies of the system Italian port system. It means, in essence, opening the way to a fragmentation that puts at risk the general interest and the role of of the Port System Authorities, the cornerstone of the model public as defined by Law 84/94".

"It is not a question - continues the note of the Municipality - of a normal competitive comparison between territories. It is the choice decided to create a private structure a few kilometers from the country's main public cruise port, compromising investments, planning and port development prospects that have always been a strategic resource for Civitavecchia and for Lazio. A damage that does not only affect the local economy, but the very function of the public port as an infrastructure to the service of the national interest".

Reiterating its total opposition to the project, the The Municipality announced "every institutional, political initiative and legal necessary to protect the public port, the territory and the fundamental principle that strategic infrastructures they must remain in public hands and oriented towards the common good".

Great satisfaction with the adoption of the Evaluation Decree Environmental Impact by the Ministry of the Environment is was expressed instead by Cruise Terminals International which highlighted how this confirms the compatibility environmental, landscape and cultural aspects of the new port project tourist and cruise industry of Fiumicino which - specified THE COMPANY - "It will be a pillar of development sustainable development of Fiumicino, a social and economic catalyst that will become an attractive destination for boaters, tourists and residents. In addition, the careful use of resources and the adherence to principles of the circular economy - the company noted - will generate useful and necessary elements to combat the phenomena of coastal erosion along the Lazio coast, in particular in Fregene and Macchiagrande. This will not only promote the tourist enhancement of the surrounding areas, but will protect also actively the neighboring nature reserves, rebuilding the original dune habitats, biodiversity hotspots of recognized conservation importance at European level".

"With a total investment of about 600 million euro - said the CEO of Fiumicino Waterfront, Galliano Di Marco - the project is intended to become one of the most innovative tourism infrastructures and sustainable development of the Mediterranean, and tangible proof that the development of the Mediterranean infrastructure and urban regeneration can go hand in hand successfully stepping, promoting the economic and social growth of the community".

Cruise Terminals International recalled that a study commissioned by the company to a leading international consultant explains that the project's contribution to the GDP is estimated at over 500 million euros during the construction and around €400 million per year during the construction phase exercise. In addition, the project is expected to lead to the Creation of around 2,000 jobs per year over the four years construction and more than 5,000 temporary jobs indeterminate during the exercise phase.