The debate is ignited on the proposal to revise the ETS, the tax on pollution produced by merchant ships, advanced at the European Union level. For ALIS, the Association for Sustainable Intermodal Logistics, the text confirms the European Union’s intention to maintain the ETS as a central tool in maritime transport decarbonization policies and, although it is not fully satisfactory for our Association and the companies in the sector, it incorporates some long-supported requests.
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“We welcome,” declares Marcello Di Caterina, vice president and CEO of ALIS, “the fact that Brussels has recognized the need to accompany the ecological transition with concrete tools to support investments and innovation. In this direction goes the establishment of the Sustainable Maritime Alternative Propulsion (SMAP), along with other planned financial instruments, which represent a first and important recognition of the principle supported by ALIS that a significant share of the resources generated by the maritime sector must be reinvested in the same sector to support its development and energy and technological transformation. We also positively evaluate the strengthening of measures against evasion and competitive distortions, as well as the commitment made by the Commission to avoid future forms of double taxation between the European ETS and the carbon pricing system to be introduced by the IMO. These are requests that ALIS has strongly brought to the attention of European institutions and that today find a first concrete response in the proposal.”
“However, some fundamental issues remain open,” continues Di Caterina, “for the Italian logistics and maritime system. The Commission has chosen to confirm and extend existing exemptions for some routes and particular territories, but it has not introduced a true general exemption for territorial continuity connections with the islands, as hoped for by ALIS, the maritime cluster, and Italian institutions. Similarly, the request to provide an automatic and legally binding mechanism against the risk of modal back shift, that is, the transfer of traffic from sea to road, a phenomenon that risks compromising both the competitiveness of companies operating in intermodality and the very European environmental objectives, has not been accepted. We will continue to work with European and national institutions to ensure that the decarbonization path is accompanied by adequate and concrete guarantees for the competitiveness of companies and the entire transport sector, the protection of strategic connections, and the sustainable development of Italian and European logistics.”