TRIESTE – The Venice Port Authority has announced the schedule of temporary landings places for cruise ships in Porto Marghera after prohibiting access to the Basin of San Marco of units over 25 thousand tons.
The schedule provides for the arrival of about 18 ships at the Venice Passenger Terminal (as they comply with the limit of gross tonnage below 25 thousand tons and the remaining criteria provided for by the Decree), 10 at the Venice RoPortMos Terminal in Fusina (Ro-Ro ships), 1 at the VECON terminal (container ships) and 2 whose destination will be defined in the coming days. Ships with a gross tonnage exceeding the limits set by the Decree will travel the Malamocco-Marghera canal. In the meantime, explains a note of the Authority, the organizational, managerial and operational model aspects are being finalized.
The planning is the result of the joint work, carried out in the two central weeks of August, between the North Adriatic Sea Port Authority, the Harbour Master’s Office, the Air and Frontier Maritime Health, the Customs and Monopolies Agency, the Frontier Police, the Financial Police and the Fire Brigade. All together with the concessionaires of the terminals VECON, TIV, Venice RoPortMos and VTP.
After the stop decreed by the central government, the goal is to restart the cruise sector while respecting the protection of waterways of cultural interest, declared a national monument: the Basin of San Marco and the Giudecca Canal. But one of the results to be achieved is also to start the technical comparison for the works that the Commissioner will have to carry out for the berths given the 2022 season and the following ones.
«Thanks to everyone’s collaboration and commitment, we were able to recover 50% of this year’s cruise schedule. We have done this by identifying temporary solutions, verifying their suitability with respect to the type of ships to be hosted and the safety of navigation and land operations, with respect to the balance between passenger and commercial/industrial traffic, always protecting the environment and work. We started working immediately in an integrated way – said Fulvio Lino Di Blasio, President of the Authority and Special Commissioner for Large Ships – to give a concrete and immediate response at a particularly difficult time for the cruise industry in Venice, to safeguard the destination Venice, workers and the function of the port. This is just the first concrete step of a path that we are already building and that will see us committed in the fall to give a sustainable future to the cruise industry in Venice».
Moreover, today the president Di Blasio signed the decree for the establishment of the Management Committee of the Authority. Di Blasio himself as president, Piero Pellizzari and Dario Riccobene, respectively Commander of the Port of Venice and Commander of the Port of Chioggia, Giuseppe Roberto Chiaia (Director of the Legal Area of ​​the Municipality of Venice) in share in the Metropolitan City on the recommendation of the mayor Luigi Brugnaro, and Maria Rosaria Anna Campitelli, confirmed by the Veneto Region, are part of it.