Recovery Plan: appeal to parliamentarians and Abruzzo institutions

"Dear,

we would like to write to you as the news has leaked that within the PNRR (Recovery Plan) which must be submitted to the European Commission by the end of April, it seems that the resources allocated to Abruzzo are very few and even less, if not all absent, those destined for the Abruzzo ports.

In the previous draft of the Recovery Plan - circulated months ago - the resources for the Abruzzo ports were completely absent. Everyone was aware of the shortcomings of this draft and the promise of a remedy had come from many parts, both in terms of territorial distribution of resources and in the context of priority interventions to be financed. We ourselves, the operators, have been called to highlight the priorities and needs of the Abruzzo ports in order to face the challenges that await us in the coming years.

In the Mediterranean, Italy has a position of absolute geographical centrality. Abruzzo, as a hinge region between south and north and east and west, would be able, if its infrastructures were completed, to express a growing potential for new industrial settlements and new development opportunities, including green new deals. The Zes, linked to the theme of ports, would allow, having improved the perimeter and made the areas as 107.3.c, to strengthen the role of Abruzzo and the attraction of productive investments and new occupations, the only economic incentives provided in the Special Economic Zones , without the necessary infrastructural investments they risk being a failure.

It will be essential to plan a few infrastructural but strategic interventions, to free and strengthen the economic, social and territorial cohesion of the various areas and to intercept the recognition in Europe of the extension of the "mobility corridors". Implementing the Abruzzo infrastructures also means translating the theme "Logistics and the Mediterranean" into concrete actions, which represents the key through which Abruzzo can perform a strategic function, together with the rest of the South.

The implementation of interventions aimed at the completion, adaptation and enhancement of ports

Abruzzo, will ensure greater speed and facilitation in the transport of people and goods, as well as determining, in the short-medium term, an increase in employment, strengthening and increasing the competitiveness of the production areas of Abruzzo, as well as favoring the growth of attractiveness of coastal, mountain, parks, hills and religious sites, with an evident increase in jobs.

For the infrastructures and strategic port works of the Abruzzo Region, it is necessary to identify and set the degree of absolute priority in order to quickly create those materials related to rail, port, road, air-port transport.

It is inconceivable to learn that in a strategic plan that will define the economic future of the

next years to come, Abruzzo is completely cut off. It is unthinkable that strategic and immediately feasible works are not taken into consideration, such as the completion of the port of Pescara with the restoration of the tourist lines connecting with the cross-border ports, the completion of the regional port of Vasto and the national port of Ortona considered strategic both for intermodality (existing connection within the port with the railway) and for the consolidated traffic of over one million tons handled, following, moreover, a growing movement trend in 2020 despite the Covid emergency, in countertrend with almost all of the Italian ports, which instead recorded a downward trend in terms of movements compared to 2019. To this end, the completion of the docks of Riva del Porto di Ortona, already included in the regional planning cards and proposed by the Authority port system, but not financed, represents a priority capable of completing the infrast structure and give impetus to new growth opportunities.

Already numerous companies in various industrial sectors such as agro-food, chemical, energy, plant engineering, wind power, automotive etc. they use the national port of Ortona on a daily basis but await the adaptation of the infrastructures and the seabed to the growth trend that these sectors have proven to guarantee in the regional and national economies. The macro-theme of the economy of the sea therefore focuses decisively on the technological and energy transition in maritime mobility and in port-logistic handling. Within the framework of the regional industrial policy strategy, the support measures for investments in renewal and technological adaptation to alternative sources of means of transport should go to this sector, extended to all segments of maritime-port mobility. Companies from Abruzzo, in the absence of a functional regional port, are in fact forced to choose ports in other regions even hundreds of kilometers away, with the increase of costs that put their competitiveness in difficulty.

This is an opportunity that cannot be missed and it is right that Abruzzo, its port system and all the businesses, are made part of the opportunities of the Recovery Plan. Not for a parochial reason, but because these works are strategically fundamental for the development of the regional territory and of all of central Italy.

With this appeal, we invite everyone not to let their guard down and to assume, each in their own roles, their responsibilities for the future of their territory, businesses and citizens ”.

Companies from Abruzzo