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VENICE

Italy to pay €57m compensation over Venice cruise ship ban

The Italian government announced on Friday it would pay 57.5 million euros in compensation to cruise companies affected by the decision to ban large ships from Venice's fragile lagoon.

A cruise ship in St Mark's Basin, Venice.
The decision to limit cruise ship access to the Venice lagoon has come at a cost. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

The new rules, which took effect in August, followed years of warnings that the giant floating hotels risked causing irreparable damage to the lagoon city, a UNESCO world heritage site.

READ ALSO: Venice bans large cruise ships from centre after Unesco threat of ‘endangered’ status

Some 30 million euros has been allocated for 2021 for shipping companies who incurred costs in “rescheduling routes and refunding passengers who cancelled trips”, the infrastructure ministry said in a statement.

A further 27.5 million euros – five million this year and the rest in 2022 – was allocated for the terminal operator and related companies, it said.

The decision to ban large cruise ships from the centre of Venice in July came just days before a meeting of the UN’s cultural organisation Unesco, which had proposed adding Venice to a list of endangered heritage sites over inaction on cruise ships.

READ ALSO: Is Venice really banning cruise ships from its lagoon?

Under the government’s plan, cruise ships will not be banned from Venice altogether but the biggest vessels will no longer be able to pass through St Mark’s Basin, St Mark’s Canal or the Giudecca Canal. Instead, they’ll be diverted to the industrial port at Marghera.

But critics of the plan point out that Marghera – which is on the mainland, as opposed to the passenger terminal located in the islands – is still within the Venice lagoon.

Some aspects of the plan remain unclear, as infrastructure at Marghera is still being built. Meanwhile, smaller cruise liners are still allowed through St Mark’s and the Giudecca canals.

Cruise ships provide a huge economic boost to Venice, but activists and residents say the ships contribute to problems caused by ‘overtourism’ and cause large waves that undermine the city’s foundations and harm the fragile ecosystem of its lagoon.

Member comments

  1. It’s not like these large cruise ships didn’t know this was coming. How lazy are people that they cancel their cruise because they can’t swan off their ship onto their preferred destination?

  2. The Unions at the (recently expanded) San Basilio passenger ship terminal on the St. Marks basin are probably holding them up for PLENTY.

  3. The cruise lines have caused untold billions in environmental damage, damage to our heritage and have made our historic coastal towns unlivable for locals, and we are paying compensation to them?!?

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TRAVEL NEWS

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail operator and the GDL train drivers' union have reached a deal in a wage dispute that has caused months of crippling strikes in the country, the union said.

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

“The German Train Drivers’ Union (GDL) and Deutsche Bahn have reached a wage agreement,” GDL said in a statement.

Further details will be announced in a press conference on Tuesday, the union said. A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn also confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

Train drivers have walked out six times since November, causing disruption for huge numbers of passengers.

The strikes have often lasted for several days and have also caused disruption to freight traffic, with the most recent walkout in mid-March.

In late January, rail traffic was paralysed for five days on the national network in one of the longest strikes in Deutsche Bahn’s history.

READ ALSO: Why are German train drivers launching more strike action?

Europe’s largest economy has faced industrial action for months as workers and management across multiple sectors wrestle over terms amid high inflation and weak business activity.

The strikes have exacerbated an already gloomy economic picture, with the German economy shrinking 0.3 percent across the whole of last year.

What we know about the new offer so far

Through the new agreement, there will be optional reduction of a work week to 36 hours at the start of 2027, 35.5 hours from 2028 and then 35 hours from 2029. For the last three stages, employees must notify their employer themselves if they wish to take advantage of the reduction steps.

However, they can also opt to work the same or more hours – up to 40 hours per week are possible in under the new “optional model”.

“One thing is clear: if you work more, you get more money,” said Deutsche Bahn spokesperson Martin Seiler. Accordingly, employees will receive 2.7 percent more pay for each additional or unchanged working hour.

According to Deutsche Bahn, other parts of the agreement included a pay increase of 420 per month in two stages, a tax and duty-free inflation adjustment bonus of 2,850 and a term of 26 months.

Growing pressure

Last year’s walkouts cost Deutsche Bahn some 200 million, according to estimates by the operator, which overall recorded a net loss for 2023 of 2.35 billion.

Germany has historically been among the countries in Europe where workers went on strike the least.

But since the end of 2022, the country has seen growing labour unrest, while real wages have fallen by four percent since the start of the war in Ukraine.

German airline Lufthansa is also locked in wage disputes with ground staff and cabin crew.

Several strikes have severely disrupted the group’s business in recent weeks and will weigh on first-quarter results, according to the group’s management.

Airport security staff have also staged several walkouts since January.

Some politicians have called for Germany to put in place rules to restrict critical infrastructure like rail transport from industrial action.

But Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the calls, arguing that “the right to strike is written in the constitution… and that is a democratic right for which unions and workers have fought”.

The strikes have piled growing pressure on the coalition government between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, which has scored dismally in recent opinion polls.

The far-right AfD has been enjoying a boost in popularity amid the unrest with elections in three key former East German states due to take place later this year.

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