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 demanding the elimination of two more, going from seven to five terminals. In the first meeting to address the sustainability of cruises, attended yesterday by representatives of all administrations, the Councilor for Urban Planning, Janet Sanz (BComú), insisted that the number of cruises that visit the city must be reduced.
Port sources claim that canceling concessions would mean millions in compensation. However, Sanz is proposing that the port not build the seventh cruise terminal they agreed on five years ago, work on which has not yet begun. “There would be no financial penalty after the suspension of the tender”, maintains the councilor, who also proposed that the Terminal C concession not be renewed next year, “which is granted annually and which could put without effect”. Sanz assured 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 explained the actions that have been taken 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 that it will just be deployed during 2027.
This agreement meant 265 million public and private investment, which includes the adaptation of the Adossat pier, the construction of new terminals, the elimination of the old ones or the acceleration of the electrification of the port, among other actions, and facilitates the increase of base port operations.
During the past year, the port counted a total of 2.3 million cruise passengers. Of the latter, one million made a stopover in the city, and 650,000 embarked and disembarked in Barcelona. According to these data, 56% of the ships had their base port in the city, a percentage that, according to sources at the port, will be 58% this year, during which 805 calls are expected.
At yesterday’s meeting, in which representatives of the Generalitat, the Provincial Council, the Government delegation, Maritime Captaincy, the cruise port community and the Air Routes Development Committee also participated, the Council’s objectives were agreed to the Sustainability of Cruises, which will have a plenary that will meet two or three times a year and will be structured into work committees. The aim is to improve the transparency of cruise ship activity; create a space to share and coordinate the initiatives carried out by the different institutions; reduce the negative impacts of tourist boats; to increase its economic and social return, and to promote the link between cruise companies and the business, training and labor fabric of Barcelona.
