European Carbon Tax May Shift Shipping Traffic to Moroccan Ports

According to the Italian-Swiss MSC, the world leader in shipping, this measure could result in an additional cost of 300,000 euros per call in Valencia, where the company accounts for more than half of the traffic. Faced with these additional costs, Francisco Lorente, president of MSC Spain, warns of a possible relocation of the calls of the major shipping companies to ports outside the EU, such as Tanger Med in Morocco.

Without the constraints of this tax, ports such as Tanger could become strategic hubs for transshipment to Europe.

However, the irony of the situation does not escape Ignacio Ballester, deputy director of MSC Spain. While MSC has equipped itself with ships capable of connecting to electricity in Valencia to minimize their emissions, infrastructure delays make this initiative obsolete. Delays that could prove very costly for Spanish ports.