It took nearly ten years of mobilization, punctuated by announcements immediately followed by pitiful denials, but the result is there: in Venice, since the 1er August, cruise ships over 25,000 tonnes no longer allowed to slow down the Giudecca Canal to pass Saint Mark’s Square, offering cruise passengers a unique perspective – and the city’s inhabitants the distressing feeling of being brushed against by monsters of frightening excess. Until then, this route could be taken by ships weighing up to 110,000 tonnes.
This decision, announced many times and so many times referred to a hypothetical future for lack of a replacement solution, was taken by a simple decree by the President of the Italian Council, Mario Draghi, declaring the Giudecca Canal a “national monument” – and thus closing the door to the recourse and delaying tactics which had been characteristic of this affair from the outset.
However, Venice does not intend to renounce an activity which represents, according to the figures put forward by supporters of grown up navi, no less than 5,000 direct and indirect jobs – a highly exaggerated estimate according to opponents of cruise line activity. It is therefore a matter of urgently developing a substitute course.
Commercial traffic disruption
The solution that was considered for the future – that of taking the 15 km “oil tanker channel” starting from the Malamocco pass, then disembarking the passengers in a new port area located in Marghera, in an industrial site. in the midst of the requalification phase, involves great uncertainties.
For Armando Danella, former head of the “special law for the protection of the lagoon” with the municipality of Venice, this company has only flaws. “The project involves digging again and again the lagoon near Marghera, which will have very negative effects on this very fragile environment. Instead of fixing the pollution problem, we are about to make it worse. In addition, the passages risk disrupting the traffic of commercial vessels, which will have to take the same path and obey all other constraints than passenger traffic. No one will find what they are looking for ”, he predicts.
From 2022, temporary disembarkation sites must be set up in Porto Marghera, and the Veneto Regional Council has just voted a resolution asking the State to ease regulatory constraints to speed up work on the new complex intended to accommodate cruise ships, which should not see the light of day until 2026.
You have 7.47% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.