A 2025 is expected to be a year with a blow to the prices for freight transport to and from Sardinia. The complaint comes from the Pd deputy and member of the Budget Committee of the Chamber, Silvio Lai, who warns: the companies will unload the responsibility for the failure to adapt to the directives for the reduction of CO2 emissions onto those who travel.
«From 2024, shipping companies will also have to pay for excess carbon dioxide production based on a 21-year-old European directive, widely known also because it was updated in 2015 with the introduction of monitoring and reporting to the relevant authorities of carbon dioxide emissions generated by maritime transport», explains the Sardinian MP.
But while in Northern Europe "they have equipped themselves to modify ships with traditional diesel propulsion systems, also using European resources, today the companies that have not used these 21 years to modernize themselves expect to pass the costs of delays and inefficiencies on to citizens and small freight transport companies".
For Lai "it is unacceptable and the competent ministry in Italy, Matteo Salvini's transport ministry, is accepting what is happening without any initiative and without an adequate reaction".
The shipping companies that manage the connections with Sardinia "are in an oligopolistic regime without real competition and have billion-dollar turnovers with profits of hundreds of millions of euros and not even their economic health can justify a senseless initiative. It would be like saying that diesel taxis were allowed to apply an increased fare to passengers to pay for their higher CO2 emissions compared to electric cars".
In this context, the islands are particularly penalized in terms of costs by the lack of alternative transport by road and rail. Lai warns: «The transport of a truck to and from Sardinia will undergo increases estimated at 200 euros per trip in 2025 and 300 in 2026, with a double burden if the vehicle travels only to carry goods needed by the island without exporting them to the Peninsula».
