Five years after the signing of the agreement in which the Port of Barcelona undertook to reduce cruise terminals from nine to seven, the City Council is now calling for a twist and to eliminate two more, going from seven to five terminals. In the first meeting to address the sustainability of cruises and in which representatives of all administrations have attended, the Councilor for Urban Planning, Janet Sanz (BComú), has insisted that the number of cruise passengers visiting the city must be reduced.
Port sources affirm that annulling concessions would mean millions in compensation. However, Sanz proposes that the port not build the seventh cruise terminal that they agreed to five years ago and whose works have not started. “There would be no economic penalty after the suspension of the bidding process,” maintains the councilor, who has also proposed that the Terminal C concession not be renewed next year, “which is granted annually and could be rendered null and void.” . Sanz has said that “every time we have bigger and more crowded ships, we can reach four million cruise passengers and this is unsustainable.”
During the meeting, the port exposed the actions that have been carried out as a result of that 2018 framework agreement, which has resulted in the closure of the Maremagnum terminal and the north terminal of the World Trade Center and which will just be deployed in 2027.
This agreement involved 265 million public and private investment, which contemplates the adaptation of the Adossat dock, the construction of new terminals, the elimination of the old ones or the acceleration of the electrification of the port, among other things, and facilitates the increase in operations from home port. During the past year, the port recorded a total of 2.3 million cruise passengers. Of these, one million made a stopover in the city, and 650,000 embarked and disembarked in Barcelona.
In yesterday’s meeting, the objectives of the Council for the Sustainability of Cruises were agreed, which will have a plenary that will meet two or three times a year and will be structured into work commissions. The objective is to improve the transparency of cruise activity in the Port of Barcelona; generate a space to share and coordinate the different initiatives of the different institutions; reduce the negative impacts of cruises; increase their economic and social return; and strengthen the link between cruise companies with the business, training and labor fabric of the city.
