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80 cruises this April in Barcelona: Colau asks to reduce them and the Port responds that it cannot

2023-04-13T03:29:47.304Z


The start of the high season for large ships revives the debate about their impact on the city. Entities, experts and environmentalists ask for its elimination


Next weekend 15 cruise ships will dock in Barcelona.

Eight on Friday, three on Saturday and four on Sunday.

With names as pompous as Costa Fascinosa, MSC Grandiosa, Seven Seas Splendor or Symphony of the Seas, and lengths ranging from 100 to 360 meters, the 15 lined liners would span more than four kilometres.

If they sailed at full capacity, they would add 47,000 passengers.

The first weekend of the high cruise season that begins this month, with a total of 80 cruises scheduled for April, has revived the debate about its impact on the city.

On Tuesday, the mayoress Ada Colau opted for the "degrowth" of the sector and asked the Generalitat to sit down to discuss how.

On Wednesday, the president of the Port, Lluís Salvadó, responded that the port institution cannot limit the number of cruise ships that arrive.

He also defended that they are not the most polluting ships that sail, but announced the creation of a Council for the Sustainability of the sector to analyze the negative impacts.

Meanwhile, neighborhood entities, environmentalists and experts meet in conferences that demand the elimination of the cruise industry and announce mobilizations.

Barcelona reached the record number of cruise passengers before the pandemic, with 3.1 million people;

the data for 2020 and 2021 plummeted, but in 2022 they rose again to 2.3 million.

A cruise passenger on the Silver Dawn, docked at the Port of Barcelona, ​​in the week that the high season for the sector begins.

At the weekend, 15 cruise ships arrive in the city and in the entire month of April, 80.MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI

A year ago, Colau asked the Generalitat and the Government —which has a majority on the Port Administration Council— to limit cruises in Barcelona.

His arguments, the pollution they cause and the collapse caused by the presence of thousands of people in the center of Barcelona for a few hours.

The mayoress appealed to the regulation of the Balearic Islands, where the government of Francina Armengol negotiated with the employers' association of the shipping companies and only allows three ships to dock a day in Palma.

There was only one meeting in July and now, before Easter, the Barcelona City Council insisted on the Government meeting.

The Generalitat has responded that the meeting can be held in the space that the Port has proposed.

The Deputy Mayor for Ecology, Janet Sanz,

After a vacation with Barcelona back to the images of mass tourism, Colau on Tuesday defended limiting some activities in the sector and "the decrease in cruise ships."

And he added arguments: "They leave little economic benefit in the bulk of the city, 40% are there for four hours and generate a collapse in the mobility of the center, they are questioned at an environmental level and the limitations raised in other parts of the world."

In addition, the mayor criticized the president of the Port for being "against regulating" and having announced that he will appeal the tax for cruise ships approved in Parliament.

It was fair in Parliament, in an appearance before the Territory Commission, where Salvadó responded to the mayoress and to the parties that question the sector coinciding with the officially decreed climate emergency.

In Comú Podem and the CUP have activated the alarm and have also demanded that they intervene as in the Balearic Islands.

The president of the port authority responded that the entity lacks the powers to stop the arrival of cruise ships and that it can only set the number of terminals that are later managed by private companies.

"In 2018, Colau and the Port agreed to seven terminals that had to be moved," recalled Salvadó, noting that this agreement involved an investment of 50 million euros.

“The City Council and the Port have the powers that we have.

We can't say next year there will be so many cruises,

but it can say so many terminals”.

The idea of ​​the agreement with the city was to move the ships to new terminals in the Adosado Dock: of a total of seven, there are five operating, one under concession and another in process.

Cruise ships docked last May, when cruise activity recovered after the pandemic and received 125 ships.

In total, in 2022 2.1 million cruise passengers arrived in the city.Carles Ribas

However, the also former ERC deputy has admitted that he is aware of the tourist mass that can occur on certain days in the city and has announced that he will promote a Council for the Sustainability of Cruises, which will meet on the 19th. The commitment is to "analyze these congestions and if they occur at certain points on days of the year, [cruise passengers] are informed that they cannot go and offer them alternative destinations such as the Penedès cellars or other spaces," he stated.

"You have to listen to the city and gradually reduce the problems," he pointed out, stating that cruise ships are the most ecologically efficient vessels.

"They are the most modern ships and 80% produce and consume their own water."

The Port has indicated this year that 58% of cruise ships embark and disembark passengers in the city,

David Cid, spokesman for the commons, has pointed out that Barcelona receives 400,000 cruise passengers per month in high season and more than 15,000 per day on 50 days.

“Barcelona has twice as many cruise ships as Venice and I don't know if it's sustainable”, he said, recalling that Palma or Dubrovnik have set limits.

And he has set an example of reducing them to 200,000 a month and putting a cap of 10,000 a day.

Salvadó has pointed out that the Palma City Council has only reached "a goodwill agreement" to speak with tourist companies and that it will be "implemented in the future".

Meanwhile, environmental entities, neighborhoods and tourism experts grouped in the #StopCreuers campaign are celebrating this week, with the participation of several cities with Mediterranean ports, three days of debate in which they raise the tone of their message of rejection of the sector: from requesting a progressive reduction of cruise ships go on to urge "the total disappearance of the cruise industry in our territory", given the "absolute lack of political reaction to the energy crisis and the climatic and ecological abyss" and taking into account, they warn, of which is "the most polluting means of transport per person and kilometer".

The entities also warn that "the industry is in the hands of a few multinationals that navigate under the flags and regulations of tax havens" and question the rights and working conditions of their staff.

They also argue the negative impact that mass tourism causes in neighborhoods and urban space.

For all these reasons, they announce mobilizations before the municipal elections.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-04-13

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