Promoting the strategic role of maritime transport as essential infrastructure ensuring territorial continuity, food and energy supplies, tourism and economic and social cohesion of islands. This was the main request from the Italian shipowners of Assarmatori to the European Parliament’s Transport and Tourism chaired by MEP Karima Delli, on the occasion of a meeting organised by Assarmatori during yesterday’s TRAN Committee Mission in the island of Ischia held upon an initiative by MEP Giuseppe Ferrandino.

During a panel held on board the Medmar Giulia ferry ship, CEOs and Managing directors from the main ferry lines operating in the Gulf of Naples have discussed the main challenges, strengths and perspectives of ferry shipping and insular connections as regards decarbonisation, infrastructure developments and needs and intermodality in light of EU climate targets and policies.

Assarmatori Chairman Stefano Messina said: “We have a longstanding, fruitful dialogue with the TRAN Committee which has proven particularly useful, as demonstrated by the specific measures on islands’ connections which were inserted in various Fit for 55 proposals regarding the shipping sector, including the FuelEU Maritime Regulation approved yesterday also by the EU Council”.

On the issue of environmental sustainability, the shipowners of the Naples’ Gulf have illustrated to the MEPs the green investments already made and those planned in the years to come. Dario Bazargan, Head of the Brussels’ Office of Assarmatori, added: “The meeting with the TRAN Committee in the island of Ischia gave us the opportunity to underline the commitment of the sector towards the development of a sustainable, greener, and competitive maritime transport, able to reconcile environmental, social, and economic sustainability objectives. The European Parliament, in a recent resolution, has invited the European Commission and Council to pay particular attention to the specificities of islands, and to the maritime connections on which islands heavily depend for their territorial continuity, in the development of national and EU policies: our expectations is that these specificities will continue to be taken into account, thereby safeguarding the fundamental values of economic, social and territorial cohesion enshrined in the EU treaties”.