INTERVISTA CON PASQUALINO MONTI PRES. AUTORITA' PORTUALE SICILIA OCCIDENTALE

It is clear that the situation we found is not a simple one. I never like to talk about what we found, because usually it becomes almost an excuse for not doing. In this case, I saw that things were done, so we can talk about it. Yes, it is a port, quote unquote, managed in terms of regulation by the harbor master's office, but for too long abandoned to itself. So a port that had totally old and outdated infrastructure, which could not face any challenge with the market, which is increasingly competitive and demanding, not only from the point of view of the redevelopment of reception facilities, maritime stations, or terminals, but also from the point of view of major infrastructure. A port that has a draft of about six and a half to seven meters on average is a port that clearly cannot interest commercial traffic. In passenger traffic, it can remain a regional port destined for national cabotage, that is, connections of small ferries with the islands. We instead tried to start planning, programming, and realizing, starting from the redevelopment of reception facilities. So we built the fast ferries terminal because behind the piers of the hydrofoils connecting to the islands, we realized as soon as we arrived that passengers were waiting for the hydrofoils in the water, wind, rain, and bad weather without any possibility of having a covered place, a bar to wait for boarding and disembarking operations. So in about eight to nine months, roughly a year from design, we built the fast ferries terminal. Then we set out to understand, together within the system of the Authority of Western Sicily, what further traffic could be increased. We saw that there were already some small calls made by Trapani operators in full autonomy before the arrival of the Authority, so credit goes to them. But we said, this is a context that lives as a port within a wonderful city, the city of Trapani. Perhaps it is time to adapt the reception facilities also for cruise coherence. So as all Trapani residents can see, we are restoring and renovating the maritime station, the old maritime station. It will be a very beautiful work that will bring greenery, an efficient structure with all the credentials to host that traffic. In the meantime, we have closed agreements with the two main international cruise players, MSC and Costa. We have included Trapani as a second port, because Palermo is larger and can host more ships, while Trapani can host fewer ships and needs infrastructure that we are building, which Palermo perhaps did not need immediately. So as a second destination port for cruise ships, then COVID arrived. Certainly traffic has reduced, but we, in respect of public health, still hope that this traffic can resume as soon as this bad nightmare that the entire national and world population is living through is behind us. So we have given awareness that there is an Authority that on one hand plans and designs, but also has the need to realize and fill that gap, which is almost fifty years old, in a very short period. Because here we have a gap of 50 years to fill, and objectively we have done it in terms of reception facilities with the things I just told you, and we are doing it with the major infrastructure works that lead to today's meeting, which was one of full sharing on the planning of the works that I will tell you about shortly, which are major infrastructure for the port of Trapani. But it was also a moment to understand what problems the Trapani port operators encounter daily in this phase, not in the medium or long term but in the very short term, and for which they clearly need immediate responses from our Authority. I think this meeting was decidedly positive because communities meet, they sit in a room, they clarify what the problems actually are, and they seek solutions in the spirit of collaboration, full collaboration. I found a community that wants to grow, a community that clearly does not want to be penalized by the great works that await this port, because rightly it needs, in addition to looking forward to the benefits that the great infrastructure will bring, also to maintain the status quo, to be able to bring home the bacon, as they say. So it is in our interest that this happens, because we are not designing the new port of Trapani to eliminate local realities. We are trying to design the port of Trapani to give the local reality an infrastructure that can be sold better on the national and international market.

So we told them, we started from the story of the dredging, which I repeat is the most important work that the port of Trapani must carry out. We planned it, brought it to the executive design phase. For those listening, it seems like a very easy thing to write on a piece of paper and design a public work. Initially it was 30 million, now it has become 67 million. In reality, it is not so. There are core samples, the Ministry of the Environment, authorizations, the Higher Council, an infinite bureaucracy on which we must clearly try to act decisively. We arrived in a year and a half at the definition of the executive project. We took it to Europe, had it financed first for 30 million, now they have added with the Central Infrastructure Fund an additional 37 million. So we are ready, as soon as the last authorization arrives, which is the VINCA, the environmental authorization, to carry out the dredging. We are ready to dredge the port of Trapani with full respect, because the dredging work, some forget, is a work of great environmental remediation. When they say dredging, there is fear of dredging. Objectively, you remove what is waste from the seabed and take it to the landfill. So it is fundamentally an environmental remediation work.

No, there is only a part of Posidonia at the entrance, clearly it can be relocated. So the VINCA is done, there is great attention to all of this. To illustrate better, as you said earlier, Dr. Monti, it is not simple to design and then put into practice what has been designed, because you run into a series of constraints, among which undoubtedly the Posidonia. You have to find not how to bypass it, but how to maintain it and move it, in this case transplanting it, as is right, with full respect. So it is a truly complex work, 67 million euros, an important sum, to totally revolutionize, even though it is a part of the port. Then we obtained, after sending about a year ago to the Higher Council the request to be able to salvage the Molo Ronciglio, the entrance pier that was built in the past. This is also an environmental redevelopment work because you remove from the sea what historically was not there, was inserted artificially, which among other things creates damage for the entry of vessels into the port area, does not protect the port basin but helps the silting of the port basin, which means more sediments, more waste, etc., things that the people of Trapani have unfortunately learned to know. And that said, the salvage of the Molo Ronciglio: a year ago we sent the authorization request to the Higher Council, we obtained the authorization only two weeks ago. We brought it to the management committee, which is our deliberative body, which deliberated the technical-functional adaptation, and so we are ready also for the realization of the work. It is 8 million euros that we have already allocated. Then we have the consolidation of the quays. The cruise ships and commercial ships have a draft of 8 meters, so from the water surface to the bottom, there is a gap of one meter from the bottom. They draw 8 meters, the quays are at 5-6 meters, so it is clear that besides dredging, we also need to consolidate and bring the quays to 10 meters. This is another work we are carrying out, worth 10 million euros, for which we have obtained funding within the European programming. So we take European funds, but we also have the ability to spend them, and thus to demonstrate to the European community, to regional, national, and European bodies, the ability to say, look, we spend the money. It is not true that in the South, or more generally in Sicily, more generally in the South, European funds are not spent. There is a problem objectively, but there are also realities and ganglia of the state, we represent the state in our functions, that operate well and spend European funds. So this was a further initiative we carried forward.

I give the example, I always bring the example of doing. We have the fast ferries terminal, we built it. When we reported, they said, 'But you have already built and tested it?' The maritime station, despite COVID, they continued to work, despite lockdown they continued to work. And in May of next year, just this morning I had a meeting with the company and our engineers, there will be the inauguration a month ahead of the contractual deadline. I want to represent to those who are listening and following us that it can be done. It is not true the famous thing, let's leave behind the complaints. We are not a country that is used to complaining and complaining and then not appreciating when things arrive on time. Often those who do things on time are pointed at as 'who knows what'. We need to get out of this loop. It can be done, it can be realized. Certainly difficulties exist, they must be faced. It is clear that institutional synergy becomes fundamental. We have excellent synergy with the municipality of Trapani, excellent synergy with the maritime authority, with the harbor master's office, with all the institutions that represent the territory. The territory is represented within our deliberative body, and this was a battle of the senator at the time, credit must be given, and therefore lawyer Adragna this very delicate task. And the state here shows itself unworthy because few know, we were saying before in the meeting, the deliberative body members receive 30 euros per session, per session. Because the state thinks that virtue lies in deliberating for 30 euros. That is a bit the mechanism. So we must thank him because objectively he almost gratuitously lends his work for a community that he cares about. But this is a way to advocate for the decision to give access to... we need to give them... well, to understand it, I certainly, maybe understanding it, I try to make it comprehensible to you in a simple way. What is happening right at the port of Trapani: we are moving towards excavation, first the dredging of the seabed to bring part of the seabed to 11 meters and 12 meters in the part from the port entrance to the first panel of the hydrofoils. We are saying well for now. For the dredging of the remaining part, that which reaches the shipyards and therefore the quays, the Sorelle, the dry dock, we will have to wait for a second phase because the project provided for 30 million. We are convinced that in the dredging work we will manage to do all the dredging scale, but that part we have to wait technically, it is absolutely legitimate, and we have to wait for the tender. In the sense, once the tender for 67 million is awarded, usually the score assigned is also based on the discount made by the company that presents its offer. That part of the discount, having only 67 million available, we will not use it to do the additional part of dredging. So I am convinced that in the end we will manage to do the entire dredging work. But when you present the final project, the final project is around 100 million. You understand well that the port of Genoa obtained 25 million to dredge, we are obtaining 67 for Trapani. That is not a given. We need to tell things because you become credible. So this part of the country, Western Sicily, is credible not only with Trapani, but with what it is doing and concretely realizing in Palermo, Porto Empedocle, Termini Imerese. And when you become credible, finally that virtuous mechanism is triggered that allows you to obtain resources, because Europe needs to finance, but also needs to see that those financings come to a good end.

We have historical contacts with two countries. First, Tunisia. We have two lines for Palermo, clearly in Trapani there are not yet infrastructures, they will come. So we are already dialoguing with shipowners to restore them, because there was before, but with smaller ships. Today the fleet becomes larger, if you have not adapted the infrastructure over time, that is why the forty-year gap. If you have not adapted, in the end the ships, the shipowners go away, they look for other places, despite the proximity of Trapani to Tunisia. Then there is Algeria, the port of Skikda, an extraordinary reality. Algeria is an extraordinary reality that dialogues with Italy only through France and through the port of Marseille. We must try to bring them directly, to do transshipment for Ro-Ro here for that type of traffic, here in Trapani. But this must be combined with two results that we must try to achieve. The first is to make people understand that these investment operations bring work, and therefore try to retain the population and not make it emigrate, because a serious problem that the Sicilian region has today is depopulation. If the consumer markets, therefore the population decreases numerically, it is clear that the goods arriving by sea will be ever fewer. The second element is the element of structural capacity, industrial capacity. If I want the goods to arrive, not only to come to my home but to be processed and transferred to other places in the country or abroad, I need to have industry behind. So the Special Economic Zone, the industrial zone, the areas behind the port become important if accompanied by a great phase of reindustrialization or new industrialization. I think this is a great challenge that is not only romantic, I allow myself to say, it shows us where we must aim to ensure that all this is not just words, not just Dr. Monti's words, but becomes concretely a rosy future. It seems said like that, if everyone goes in the same direction. Exactly, but things must be done, you must design and do. If one is satisfied or remains or only complains about the status quo, things will never change. The approach is that of a person, at least in my case, who comes out and is called managerially to manage a fundamental asset for the country, not only for Sicily. And I think the right way to face it is with this attitude, the attitude of doing, not the attitude of staying still. But if I were to stay still behind my desk, earning the same amount, no one would take it away from me. I think instead the role is precisely this: to give work. In Palermo we are making about 200 permanent hires. Private companies in the port, under COVID, from here to December when the social safety nets will end, the possibility of firing or not firing by companies will be there. At the national level, a mini-massacre is expected. These are things that in my opinion must give the sign of how when you do things seriously, little by little you carry them forward, then results come. So I hope it is a future, or something more than a hope, that it is a rosy future, but certainly we must work, work, commit. It is not a question of one person, it is a question of entire communities that must roll up their sleeves and try to understand that for our and their children, there is a need for those who today sacrifice themselves on the path of doing.

Absolutely, there was the rigor of the project, let's call it the little train that ran through the port area to the bus terminal in Trapani. Does this possibility still exist? Honestly, that catches me a bit unprepared on the topic. There is the possibility, clearly, of working on the new road system. We have allocated two and a half million for the new road system within the port area, and with the municipality we are defining the last details. Now, whether it will be a little train, whether it will be a public transport of another nature, whether it will be, in addition to the cycle path, also a matter of ordinary shuttle service like a terminal, from the parking lot further east to arrive at the maritime station like an airport terminal, this is still to come. These are being defined and also affect the road system. Absolutely yes, necessary. I think it is the first thing, and I imagine that this is primarily something that is owed to the city of Trapani, to the citizens of Trapani, because objectively it is very complicated to think of developing any type of traffic with the current road system, which then brings benefit also to the hinterland. I remind those listening that cruises do not represent only cruises and large yachts. The design we are now doing, we are launching an international project, an international ideas competition, something we also did in Palermo, where large firms will come connected with local firms, because we are doing the tender together with the professional orders of engineers and architects of Trapani. We will launch this great project to redevelop assets that are not only of the Authority: the entire redevelopment of the fishing port, the Velino Naso and the Colombaia, and the connecting bridge finally with a transparent walkway that brings an overall design, a different skyline to this wonderful place that honestly I think deserves something like that.

Yes, it can be done. Now we inaugurate with hesitation, but let's say I thank you. We started, this must be said, we did not take the best areas here, for a year and eight months, two years or so. But I remember, I have been doing this job for too long, I remember all the perplexities that existed: 'Only three ports in a system authority? How will the Palermitans go? They are taking away from us?' It is evident that the design, the idea was so far-sighted, then there are the right people in the right place, everyone works together, things happen, and this is the demonstration. So I was reflecting, it was possible, certainly a joke. Objectively, on October 30, in fact, in Palermo we will inaugurate the terminal, we will inaugurate a whole part of the port that we have destined. It is a wonderful work. And if you had come two years ago, today you would ask me, 'How is it possible?' If you had seen those places two years ago, there were two immense cranes, four unloaders, 32 silos, semi-trailers scattered everywhere, construction sites that invaded the skyline of the port. When you redevelop a port area, whether it is Palermo or Trapani, you return to the city its own sea, because the gateway of a city from the sea is as important as the land. So the business card of a city, and even more so for a city like Trapani, which is tourism. So we must develop both pleasure boating, megayachts, and the small craft, and the cruise and passenger part, because you also have foreigners here. The merit remains absolutely his, but the part more connected to the city clearly must have a destination that is a gateway from the sea. I forgot something, we have two minutes of time, but I think we discussed in general terms a bit of everything. I hope to return. Yes, now I have to extract a promise. Now we have, on the other side, it is covered by that wall, a program that I also host, which goes live in the evening with interaction through Facebook with our viewers, it lasts an hour and a half. So if you take the commitment to come here, at the disposal of the territory, because a voice as clear and absolutely sure can respond directly to the people. We organize it, yes, very willingly. Now I can't give a date, I also want to clarify two aspects. I am a person who is always very available to do, to realize, but you also have to be a bit behind the lines. Often being behind the lines, not appearing, not speaking, or going on newspapers, is seen as 'Jesus Christ descended to earth'. No, it is the exact opposite. It means giving the idea that there is not someone who chatters, because I don't have to sell smoke to anyone, but there is someone who with commitment and dedication tries to bring home results. Then when the results become visible, it is also correct, not for my figure, but for all those who work on it, the many young people who work in the Authority, work in the institutions that collaborate with us, it is right to come and tell. So I am pleased, and then if there is interaction with the city, even better, because certainly there are criticisms, as it should be. We must listen to them, treasure them, and where possible maybe also solve some problem for the citizens.

Thank you. Thank you to you.