The Port of Barcelona has been forced to withdraw the public tender for the construction and operation works of Cruise Terminal G, the last available in the Catalan capital for this type of ship. An administrative dispute presented by a group of shipping companies to the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) and to which this newspaper has had access has caused the Port to adopt this decision “out of prudence”. The companies denounce a favorable treatment towards Royal Caribbean, a shipping company to which the complainants consider that a tailor-made suit has been made to grant it the exclusive concession of the terminal.
Norwegian Cruise Line, Viking Ocean Cruises and Virgin Cruises are the three shipping companies that, constituted in a consortium, have filed the complaint with the TSJC. They do it as an interested party, since they applied at the time as a consortium to operate the new terminal. But in view of the terms of the tender, they have decided to file a complaint and argue that “it conceals a direct award of the concession to the Royal Caribbean company”, the shipping company whose name has appeared in all the pools related to Terminal G.
For its part, and before the appeal filed, the Port has decided to withdraw the tender “out of prudence” and let the legal services analyze the issue, according to sources from the port entity. A decision that has been made official in the BOE on March 9, where the “suspension of the call” is reported without further argument.
The new space for cruise ships, the last available in the Port of Barcelona, ??has a surface area of ??57,560 square meters and is linked to a 35-year concession. It provides for the construction of a sustainable building that also includes mobility solutions to respond to the increase in passengers generated by state-of-the-art ships, which are expected to be housed in this terminal. In August 2022, the request by the company Catalonia Cruise Terminal C (Royal Caribbean company) for the operation of the new terminal and the start of the process by the Port was communicated through the BOE. Process that had to be stopped when other interested shipping companies appeared on the scene.
In December of last year, barely three months ago, a new announcement in the BOE began the selection process for the best successful offer through, now yes, a public tender, the same one that has now been denounced because “it articulates a direct award, under the formal cloak of the announcement of a public tender that no one else can win”.
In principle, the new cruise terminal, the furthest from the city, is designed to accommodate the largest ships that call in the city. Hence the sense that Royal Caribbean appears, a company that has declined to make any kind of comment on the matter. It is the shipping company that currently owns the largest ships in the world, some with capacities that far exceed 8,000 passengers, and one of the first companies to establish its base port in Barcelona.
