Italy Supply Crisis, Austria Imposes New Restrictions

As if the Red Sea crisis were not enough, with its effects already being felt in Italian industry, Austria is now imposing new restrictions on the movement of heavy trucks, further strangling logistics in the Apennines.

Despite the announcement of the Rome government’s appeal to the European Court of Justice, Vienna has further increased restrictions on truck traffic on highways through the Brenner Tunnel, an important route for the movement of goods between Italy, Germany, and the rest of Europe through Austria. The Austrian Ministry of Mobility has imposed new restrictions on the transit of trucks on two highways crossing Tyrol – from January 13 to March 9, every Saturday from 7:00 to 15:00, for vehicles weighing more than 7.5 tons.

Meanwhile, the Italian ports of Genoa and Trieste are beginning to feel the effects of the Red Sea crisis, which has forced major maritime transportation companies to avoid the Suez Canal, a crucial route of communication between Asia, the Mediterranean, and Europe. The ships went around Africa, therefore it was now more profitable for them to go directly to Northern Europe and the major ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Hamburg, without using Italian and other Mediterranean ports.

“The risk of escalation in the Bab-al-Mandab Strait, one of the most strategically important points for the world economy, could reduce the importance of the Mediterranean for international maritime routes,” explained Massimo Dal Cecco, chairman of Confindustria Assafrica & Mediterraneo, to Italian news agency Adnkronos. “Reduced security in the region represents a serious risk for Italian companies, especially for small and medium-sized businesses (…). There is a threat of increased production costs due to limited availability of raw materials, especially those coming from China and India.”

Another issue with global implications is the simultaneous decline in the navigability of the Panama Canal, which continues to break records in minimum water levels. The drought that has been raging in the area since October has made it difficult to get water from the lakes that feed the locks. The route connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans is 66% loaded. In auctions for the few available passage quotas, prices exceeded a million dollars per space.

Back in Italy, a landslide in September interrupted freight traffic for several days through the Frejus Tunnel, one of the two Alpine highways between Italy and France. The other tunnel, Mont Blanc, was closed for maintenance for 9 weeks and will remain closed for the same reason for a couple of months each year over the next 18 years.

Italy thus faces, on the one hand, the difficulty of shipping goods from Asia and, on the other hand, the difficulty of exporting them via the congested Alpine routes.