Blue Flag Project 2024: Di Blasio (AdSPMAS): “Sustainable cruises enhance territories and attract resources: plans to electrify two quaysides in Chioggia are ready and will be 50% financed by the EU”.

enice, 16 May 2024 – Commenting the signing of the voluntary Blue Flag 2024 agreement that took place this morning at Ca’ Farsetti in Venice, the President of the North Adriatic Sea Port System Authority Fulvio Lino Di Blasio commented:
“As far as the Port Authority is concerned, the sustainability of port activities is a strategic objective, as well as a daily practice. By signing the Blue Flag 2024 voluntary agreement, the Port Authority has shown yet another concrete expression of its commitment in this direction, through a consolidated model of cooperation between public and private entities. The document signed stems from more than ten years of cooperation with the municipal administrations of Venice and, since last year, of Chioggia, with their respective Harbour Masters and the shipping companies that call at our ports.”.
“The agreement is fully in line with the Authority and the Commissioner’s policies aimed at reconciling the cruise industry’s needs with the need to assure a balanced lagoon ecosystem. The new paradigm will entail planning tourist flows, acknowledged as a resource for local communities as they create value and employment, whilst encouraging the modernisation of infrastructure in for a green transition and the attraction of financing and investments.”.
“On this latter issue I would like to mention plans to ensure cold ironing facilities for cruise ships in Chioggia, a fast-growing destination, whose port was initially excluded from financing under the National reconstruction and resilience plan. As a result, the Authority intervened by co-financing 50% of the technical-economic feasibility project and cost-benefit analysis for the building of infrastructure for two electricity supply points on the Saloni quay. The design activities have been included in the EALING project and are 50% financed by funds from the ‘Connecting Europe Facility – CEF’ programme, of which AdSPMAS is a partner. The project was completed last December and envisages building a 4.5 MW medium-voltage supply station for cruises and another 400kW station for river vessels. The cost of the cold ironing system on the Saloni quayside is estimated at about 6 million Euros. The Port has also allocated another 2.6 million euro to enhance and further develop the strategy it shares with the Cultural Network of Adriatic Ports, united in the aim to promote cruise ports as high-end and sustainable destinations, by promoting the local cultural heritage which, by the way, is also the aim of the European project ADRIJOROUTES (financed by the Italy-Croatia Programme) of which the port is also a partner.”.