But, what’s the result of all this?

“The effect on the country is that someone needs to pay for all this and the consumer will end up paying it. This will have a very negative impact.”

“Firstly, on the Freeport – there will be losses in the millions, there may also be losses, God forbid, of jobs.”

The Freeport handles around three million containers a year, Castillo explained.

“This means that ships may begin choosing to not do their transshipment at Malta’s Freeport, but instead choose other ports in Africa. This means that Malta will also have problems importing things on time.”

“We will lose the connection between 165 ports around the world. This means that we will need to stock even more because their goods will take longer to arrive here.”

This will also have an impact on consumers.

“The effect on the consumer means that the costs we already have for imports as well as exports will rise. So, these costs will be pushed onto the consumer. Other costs can include insurance one may have on containers. Another thing is stock levels, an extra cost companies will need to pay to have more space to keep their stock as obviously, the stock will not arrive on time like before.

What are the potential solutions?

“The Nationalist Party has had solutions, it said it would launch a €40 million fund to alleviate these increased costs,” Castillo stated.

“But we could have also negotiated a package with the EU using EU funds so that as an island country we can also get help from EU funds so we can alleviate these measures that unfortunately will be hitting workers and the Maltese and Gozitan population.”

Jason Azzopardi had warned about these measures a week ago saying that they will drastically increase inflation and make Maltese companies less competitive in the European market.

In November of 2023, it was reported that seven EU countries, including Malta, were resisting the EU’s directive to extend to shipping.

In a letter to the European Commission ministers from seven EU countries called for the option to pause plans to include shipping in the EU’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) from January.

The letter said the move risks driving business away from European ports while offering limited environmental benefits.

The ETS is a directive that makes polluters pay for their greenhouse gas emissions to help bring emissions down and generate revenues to finance the EU’s green transition.

It operates in all EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway and it covers emissions from around 10,000 installations in the energy sector and manufacturing industry, as well as aircraft operators flying within the EU and departing to Switzerland and the United Kingdom – or around 40% of the EU’s emissions.

As of this month, it extended to shipping.

Are you worried about the effects of this directive on Malta’s imports and exports?