Trieste, Free Port of Eurasia

The consequences of the “phased world war” condemned by Pope Francis are now visibly affecting the International Free Port of Trieste. A few days ago, the port authority had to increase port charges on hard commodities by 140% to cover the actual cost of operating and developing the International Free Port to cope with the situation “due to current developments with declining revenues in the face of rising costs also associated with known inflationary dynamics.” Despite the dramatic increase in the number of free points of the Port of Trieste, the “favorable rate compared to the amounts received in other ports” remains. Thus, says the official press release, “current events” refer to the complicated geopolitical situation and its consequences for the European and local economy, as well as the inevitable taxation imposed by the EU also on the activities of port authorities, despite the fact that the Italian authorities are “NOT economic public authorities.”

The increase was postponed until July due to shipper protests. Since the beginning of the year, marked by the semi-blockade of the Suez Canal, following Yemeni military action in the Red Sea in solidarity with the people of Gaza, traffic (excluding oil) has fallen by about 20%, the same as in the rest of the Upper Adriatic. It should be kept in mind that only 10% of the goods passing through Trieste concern the Italian market, and 90% concern the markets of Central-Eastern Europe. However, there is a certain revival in the western Mediterranean (Tyrrhenian region, Spain), as large container ships that circumnavigated Africa only call at ports close to the Strait of Gibraltar and then resume the Atlantic route towards ports in Northern Europe, which benefits from this new situation.

The expansion of routes has increased transportation costs and delivery times, but freight rates (transportation prices) have risen much more and are now six times higher than they were last year. Large shipping companies are earning more despite the overall decline in transportation. European economies are essentially stagnant or in recession, starting with Germany, where an economic model based on a combination of cheap energy (Russian gas) and exports exploded literally with the Nord Stream pipeline.

As the regional president of Confetra FVG (port and logistics operators) Stefano Visintin explains, the semi-blockade of Suez and the subsequent lengthening of the route to the Indo-Pacific have also caused a general clogging of all transit ports (Piraeus, Malta, Port Said, Damietta, Algeciras, Tangier Med, Colombo).

Delays in the hot destinations of the Horn of Africa and the Gulf are now months, not weeks. Just as an example: shipments sent from Trieste in February have just arrived in Colombo (Sri Lanka) and will probably reach their final destination in Dubai or Oman in a month! This anomaly is due to a series of transits in clogged ports.

On the other hand, the trend of traffic on the “marine highway,” which connects Trieste with Turkey by moving wheeled semi-trailers (RORO ships), is positive: after a 25% increase last year, it is experiencing a physiological decline of only 2%. The growth of volumes of goods transit between Europe and Turkish ports via Trieste coincides with the growth of exports from Central Asian countries of the former USSR to Moscow: Armenia +195%, Kyrgyzstan +151%, Uzbekistan +53%, Kazakhstan +25%. The flow involving the “-stan” countries also occurs in the opposite direction and concerns, in particular, raw materials and hydrocarbons. Obviously, part of the transportation to and from the Black Sea and Russia was via the route of Turkey, which thus demonstrated its position of mediation and autonomy in the ongoing conflict. To the point that now about half of the cargo traffic, excluding oil, at the port of Trieste is transit between ports in Turkey and markets in Central-Eastern Europe. This is one reflection of Turkey’s assertion as a regional power, but with planetary ambitions and a strong maritime projection in line with the “Mavi Vatan – Blue Homeland” doctrine developed in 2006 by Admiral Cem Gurdeniz and supported by Erdogan. Instead, Trieste’s traditionally important trade with the Black Sea has now been virtually eliminated: Russian oil has been replaced officially by oil coming from other countries, just as steel plates coming from Mariupol now come from the Far East, and aluminum comes from the Persian Gulf, with all the difficulties mentioned.

Before the military crisis, all of Trieste’s maritime transportation to the Indo-Pacific region was carried out via the Suez Canal, to the construction of which the city made an important contribution, as evidenced by the fact that in 1859 Trieste businessman Pasquale Revoltella was appointed vice-president of the Universal Suez Canal Company. If the Houthi crisis in the Red Sea had lasted only a couple of months, it probably would not have caused major upheavals, but at the moment the situation is very serious. Although it is now clear that Western naval missions have not resolved or even alleviated the situation that has persisted and worsened since last November, just as the Gaza crisis, which is the real cause of the disease that needs to be treated urgently.

In contrast, the flow of oil from various sources into the TAL Transalpine Pipeline, which pumps oil from Trieste to Bavaria, increased by as much as 8%, meeting 100% of the needs of southern Germany, 90% of Austria, and, for a year now, 100% of the Czech Republic. Which is the likely effect of increased oil (and coal) use in Central Europe to compensate for declining gas supplies, contrary to environmental conversion projects.

At European level, rail traffic with China increased (+9%), in particular with the German logistics hub at the river port of Duisburg, which has an important relationship with Trieste, where it has stakes in rear port facilities such as Autoport. However, total land transportation volumes are incomparable with maritime transportation because of the much higher price and the difficulty of balancing import and export flows.

As is well known, the New Silk Road, promoted by Beijing and opposed by Washington, envisioned an important European terminal at Trieste, which was blocked off.

The United States and the G-20 launched the Cotton Route as an alternative, which was to connect Trieste and Central Europe to India via an imaginary overland route across the desert from Saudi Arabia to Israeli ports – something that could be made possible by the Abraham Accord promoted by the USA. Naturally, no concrete steps have been taken because of the obvious explosive situation in the Middle East, but also, and above all, because India is not even remotely comparable in industrial potential to China. What is the benefit of sea corridors with countries that are still insignificant from an industrial point of view?

The Italian government also insistently promoted through conferences and agreements with Zelensky’s government another creative idea, conceived to support its hyper-Atlantic foreign policy stance: “Trieste, the port of Kiev.” It envisioned making Trieste a port where Ukrainian grain arriving by rail could be transshipped, despite the still unsolved problem of different railroad gauges and from where, above all, materials for reconstruction could be shipped to Ukraine after Kiev’s undisputed victory and the reopening of the ports of Odessa, Kherson, Mariupol, etc. Of course, nothing concrete here either. It should be noted that the port of Piraeus (Athens) has recently made a real qualitative leap in the development of transportation in the Mediterranean, because the Chinese company COSCO has invested there: from 0.5 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) in 2009 to 5.467 million in pre-2019. In fact, the decisive role is played by the terminal manager who is able to attract lines and goods. But, as we know, there are geopolitical prohibitions on some of them, even if they contradict the interests of the territories involved. In particular, the International Free Port of Trieste has just inaugurated new lines by RORO ships with North Africa, now dedicated in particular to agri-food products, connecting it to Damietta in Egypt and Morocco. But they may only become significant in the medium term, when the Mediterranean is undergoing a process of “nearing production.” In addition, attempts are being made to utilize the special International Free Port regime derived from the 1947 Peace Treaty to attract investment in industry, manufacturing, and services of various kinds, intercepting the ongoing process of reorientation.

Trieste’s lack of a direct sea line with America, despite the fact that most of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region’s products are exported to the USA through other ports, testifies to its nature as a free port, historically and structurally located between Central Europe and the Middle, Central, and Far East. In other words, a port designed for maritime transportation between the coasts of the great Eurasian continent and the Mediterranean basin.

This specifically proves that the American-led West is working on a so-called euphemistic “decoupling” between the European and Eastern economies, meaning that in order to sever the ties that have been favorably developed between different parts of Eurasia. For purely geopolitical interests that see the convergence of German, Russian, and Chinese interests – and interconnectedness – as a mortal danger to current planetary hegemony. This type of management of an ongoing military crisis has already produced results contrary to European interests and has even led to the military cutting of important arteries such as the Nord Stream and Suez Canal gas pipelines.

The Port of Trieste, on the contrary, sees its only future in pacifying the Eurasian continent, including the Middle East, and in developing relations and ties among its constituent countries. Its unique characteristic, derived from an international peace treaty on a Free Port open to all countries without discrimination or exclusion, is the basis of a common view in favor of mediation and diplomatic resolution of current conflicts and against extremism in conflicts between states, to sanctions and arms trade (which the port workers specifically oppose). But there are those who would like to consider it only as a geopolitically strategic port and for military logistics for nearby US bases and NATO deployments in Central Europe, in order to radicalize conflicts. The visit of Pope Francis to Trieste on July 7 to close the 50th Catholic Social Week can be an opportunity, regardless of each person’s faith, to draw the attention of the international community to the desire to contribute to peace and coexistence among these lands’ populations, who have already paid a heavy tribute to two world conflicts and are uneasy about the winds of war that have begun to blow.