On the contrary, time counts for the Greeks coastsince the need to renew the fleet with ships with a low environmental footprint is imperative.
From 2030 onwards, the exemption of Greek maritime transport (outside Crete) from the emissions trading system ends.
As highlighted by the president of the Association of Maritime Passenger Transport Companies, Dionysis Theodoratos, within the scope of the symposium “The green transition of coastal navigation: challenges and perspectives for insularity”, held by the University of the Aegean, based on the payment of rights to pollution and with the reduction in passenger traffic, coastal shipping will lose approximately 420 million euros per year.
During the conference, reference was also made to the fact that the Italians had acted quickly to secure funds for their country’s coastal shipping, with the GG of the Ministry of the Navy, Manolis Koutoulakis, to respond that the Greek State will move forward at an accelerated pace.
In addition to coastal shipping, the short-sea shipping fleet is also a big problem.
The president of the Short Sea Shipping Shipowners Union, Charalambos Simantonis, proposed the inclusion of the national short sea shipping fleet in the Recovery Fund.
The proposal was accepted, since short-sea national navigation ships connect the country’s continental body to the islands. Shortsea Shipping’s national shipping fleet is made up of 102 ships, of which 35 are general cargo ships with an average age of 45 years, while the remainder are fuel carriers with an average age of 35 years.
“Available financing tools are necessary to modernize the short sea fleet so that the ship is sustainable, as green technology almost doubles the price of the ship.
At the same time, adequate infrastructure must be created in ports, because there is no “green” ship without a “green” port. The national legislative framework must be modernized and harmonized with new data,” said Mr. Simantonis.
What does this mean for the islands?
Among others, the president of the Hellenic Chamber of Navigation, Dr. Jorge Pateras. He said there are 70 million passages per year in the shipping sector, which also transports 10 million tons of cargo, around 3 million cars, to 115 destinations.
“On our islands, in addition to newspapers, 100% of transport is done by cabotage. If the slowdown stops you shouldn’t take out even 8 out of 10 things, you should take out all the things in your house, because nothing will be carried. Think about the night you go home, all you have is the dining room. If we don’t have new cabotage ships, if we don’t renew the fleet, we will have nothing on our islands”, added Pateras.