Italy To Present Plan For Unblocking Ukraine’s Exports By Providing Safe Access To Sea

Italy intends to present a project for the creation of entry and exit terminals for the Ukrainian economy in northeastern Italy at a conference on reconstruction of Ukraine, which is scheduled to take place in Rome at the end of April.

Italy’s Minister of Economic Development Adolfo Urso announced this at a roundtable organized in Venice by the Venice chapter of the Italian Confederation of Workers' Unions (CISL Venezia), the CFTS portal reports, citing the Interfax Ukraine news agency.

"The Black Sea is essentially closed to Ukraine because of military operations. To unblock Ukrainian exports in this case, there is no other option but to deliver goods to the Adriatic, using the existing railways and highways," Urso said.

The plan for unblocking Ukraine’s exports (particularly the export of metallurgical products) that the Italian government is developing provides for the creation of an intermodal transport highway along the route of the Pan-European transport corridor No. 5 (Venice - Trieste/Koper - Ljubljana - Maribor - Budapest - Uzhhorod - Lviv - Kyiv).

For this purpose, the Italian government intends to create a logistics platform that will connect Ukraine with the Quadrante Europa intermodal port in Verona by land and then with seaports in northeastern Italy, particularly Trieste and Venice.

"We will thus provide Kyiv with a new and safe access to the sea, given the difficulties involved in using the Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea," the minister said.

He expressed the hope that the logistics corridor between the Quadrante Europa intermodal port in Verona and the Goronda logistics site in Ukraine’s Zakarpattia region on the Ukrainian-Slovakian border will be ready by the time the conference begins in Rome at the end of April 2023.

"The corridor will already be active by the start of the conference in Rome. Italy is the leader of the project, in which several countries are taking part," he said, adding that the Italy-Ukraine logistics corridor project will be presented during a logistics fair in Verona on 10 March.

The Interporto Quadrante Europa in Verona is the largest transport hub in Italy. It is located at the intersection of the Turin - Trieste and Modena - Innsbruck (Austria) highways, as well as the intersection of the Verona - Innsbruck and Milan - Venice railway lines.