"The Italian port system is once again demonstrating a resilience, but to transform this ability to stable growth and competitiveness we need a governance that has at its core a solid structure of the ministry of the sector and effective coordination with all the other national administrations involved, both in the management phase administrative activities, and controls; governance involving economic representatives, terminal operators and shipowners in the first place, recognizing them a role no longer only proactive, but participatory". This was stated by Pasquale Legora De Feo, president of the National Union of Companies (UNIPORT) in the report that opened today in Rome the public assembly of the association.

Legora De Feo highlighted how, despite a international climate characterized by strong geopolitical tensions, crisis in the Persian Gulf and pressure on trade the Mediterranean continues to assert its centrality and, after a weaker start to the year, the maritime traffic in Italian ports have shown in the first signs of recovery. "This resilience - - must be exploited to the fullest. To continue to entrepreneurial capacity and the private investment: we need a public system capable of to accompany development efficiently, quickly and certainty of the rules".

The president of UNIPORT focused on the reform of the port system currently in progress, recalling that The association shares "what has always been maintained by the deputy Minister Rixi on the need to equip our country of a central structure that allows the implementation of the strategic infrastructures in a certain timeframe, facilitate the procurement of of the necessary resources also through the co-participation of private investors and supports, not replaces, the Authorities of the Port System, which will remain the administrations responsible for the management and development of the national port property. We trust therefore - he said - that the approval process of the draft of law implements these principles and objectives".

The central theme of the port reform underway, so as reiterated at the informal hearing of UNIPORT at the Transport Committee of the Chamber of Deputies on 30 June, for the association it is not the "reform" itself, When defining a model to accelerate design and construction of infrastructure works. "Ultimately - UNIPORT explained to the deputies - "it is also clear from the title given to the bill" which, "rather than a proposal for the "reform" of the fundamental law that regulates the port, we are faced with the reorganization of the part related to infrastructure and related profiles or consequent ones, with an imprint of enhancement of a coordination in this regard, which would be carried out through a peculiar corporate situation. Consistently with the thought expressed most times - UNIPORT specified - we consider favourably a greater centralization of decision-making processes affecting the infrastructure of the port, considering that Uncoordinated action on the infrastructure front does not translate into (and in concrete experience, in fact, it has not always been translated into efficient infrastructure processes (under the profiles of supply allocation, overall costs and individual work, the time of realization, the actual best the ability to attract traffic and generate wealth and employment)".

In her report today, Legora De Feo therefore spoke, referring in particular to the new breakwater of Genoa, the the Darsena di Levante in Naples, the Darsena Europa in Livorno and the Pier VIII of Trieste, of the need to accelerate the Infrastructure construction: "We need to give Certain times and speed of execution for major works ordinary maintenance and dredging. According to the president of the association, the four new works cited, which - he specified - were conceived many years ago would allow "the ports concerned to initiate processes for the benefit of the entire port community and inland port». Legora De Feo specified that, however, the infrastructure issue cannot be addressed for individual segments, and port and logistics planning must proceed together, in an integrated system logic. "We are convinced - he explained - that the involvement of private capital will help to give new impetus to infrastructure and to the efficiency of the system by transforming our country".

If in June the association recalled the doubts raised by research services, lawyers and independent authorities on the compatibility of some provisions of the Bill with the legal system including the crucial one of the establishment of the Ports d'Italia Spa, the public company envisaged by the project of reform to which a central role should be attributed in the planning and in the implementation of port infrastructure investments in general interest, alongside the System Authorities Today, the president of UNIPORT limited himself to express agreement with the approach of the Deputy Minister and to express confidence in the outcome of the parliamentary process.

When it comes to the involvement of operators in decisions, lately it seems that UNIPORT trusts that this issue is also that of the coexistence of the regulatory role and the operational role in the the same subject will be resolved during the process of definition of the reform. Previously, the association had expressed more than one fear on this aspect, as in On the occasion of the hearing at the Transport Commission of the Chamber of 17 October 2023, when the government had not yet approved the bill for the reform of port governance, Green light arrived at the end of last year ( of 22 December 2025). At the time, UNIPORT noted that, 'with specific with regard to the hypothesis of reviewing (expanding) the role and functions of a new future port administration entity, if it seems shareable and consistent with a systemic vision logistical the hypothesis of assigning to that subject tasks of programming and planning even beyond the limits of the port and of port areas as a function of the greater development of a effective and efficient integrated logistics system, it is believed that it should be the hypothesis that the subject regulatory and administrative responsibilities to take on operational tasks, since it is not considered absolutely consistent with the legal system coexistence of the role of regulator and competitor in the same subject".

A specific chapter of Legora De Feo's report is was then dedicated to the European dimension and the European directive ETS establishing an emissions trading system of greenhouse gases in the EU, with respect to which UNIPORT supports the need for corrective action, highlighting how the current regime risks producing effects both on maritime connections with the large islands and on transhipment activities, encouraging the shift of traffic and investments to ports of third countries. "Just in these days - he recalled - we have transmitted, together with the other associations of operators in the sector and Assoporti, to the Italian MEPs rapporteurs shadow of the revision of the maritime ETS in the European Parliament letter requesting targeted exemptions for the exclusion of ro-ro/pax maritime connections with the major islands by the ETS and to neutralise the ETS cost as a driver of the relocation of container transshipment activities outside Europe".

Finally, on the port work front, the president of UNIPORT expressed concern about "some amendments to the bill port reform law that would alter the current structure of the port work and the balances achieved. We are against - he clarified - to proposals which, in the name of labour protection, aim to to the strengthening of only one of the pillars that support it. On the other hand, we are in favour of the amendments broadly supported by the associations in the sector, which aim, finally, to make The rule that facilitates the retirement of workers can be implemented and the recognition of some activities as work Regardless of the type of company in which they are employees".