Confitarma: ‘National fleet down by 3 per cent a year: less red tape is needed’
“The simplification laws that have already been passed are a good thing, but an Italian ship costs up to 400,000 euros more. Further steps are needed to be able to compete.”
Key points
Despite the passing of legislation for the maritime sector – which, over the last two years, has brought procedures and codes up to date – the Italian flag continues to lose shipping tonnage, with vessels opting to be registered in the international registers of other countries, including European ones such as Malta. Confitarma has sounded the alarm, through the words of its Director-General, Luca Sisto.
“We are seeing,” he explains, “a 3 per cent annual decline in the Italian-flagged fleet: in 10 years’ time, it will be 30 per cent smaller. And within the IMO (International Maritime Organisation), it is precisely the number of ships flying a particular flag that determines who sits at the top of the table. Today, Liberia, Panama and the Marshall Islands are at the top. Italia is falling behind because it is losing its fleet: whereas it was once 13th, it is now 17th, meaning it has dropped four places. We could have been in the top 10, but instead we risk slipping into the top 20; in short, it’s a different league altogether.”
Confitarma celebrates its 125th anniversary
Confitarma, Sisto emphasises, “will raise these issues with great restraint, above all with a view to devising future solutions, at the meeting marking its 125th anniversary: a historic milestone that we will celebrate on 27 October. The point is that we must draw on the experience gained when the Italian flag was in serious crisis in the 1980s. At that time, the tonnage flying the tricolour stood at just 7 million; and we managed to revitalise the fleet, bringing it up to 20 million tonnes, through the creation of the Italian International Register and the boom that occurred prior to the great crisis (of 2008, ed.). We are now in an intermediate phase, at around 12.5–13 million tonnes, and we must be careful: we must not risk falling back to 7 but must aim to return to 20 – that is the message I wish to convey. And we can do it, because Italian shipowners are still keen to invest; they are strong and have a wealth of experience.”
The issue, Sisto continues, is that ‘the day-to-day running costs of an Italian-flagged vessel are 200,000–400,000 euros per year higher per vessel than those of ships flying other flags, due to bureaucracy. If a shipowner has 10 ships, that’s 4 million they’re throwing down the drain every 12 months – money which, if the ships flew another flag, they could keep to make investments, to start ordering a new ship, to improve their fleet or to take on more staff. This is a huge amount of money, which shipowners cannot use for their business but are instead forced to spend on all the costs and additional burdens caused by excessive bureaucracy. That said, the message we need to send out is that we want to work with the authorities to further improve on what they have already achieved: they have already made concessions towards us, but more needs to be done, and quickly.’
‘Effective measures have been introduced, but they are not enough to ensure competitiveness’
Sisto points out that, ‘in recent years, a significant process has been set in motion to modernise the regulatory framework of the Italian maritime sector and strengthen the competitiveness of our flag. The Simplification (182/2025) and Enhancing the maritime resource (70/2026) have introduced measures that the sector had long been awaiting, addressing administrative procedures, digitalisation and the updating of provisions in the Navigation Code that were no longer suited to the operational needs of businesses and workers. However, this process cannot be considered complete. Competition between ship registers is growing ever stronger. The fundamental pillars represented by the Italian International Register and the tonnage tax (a preferential and optional tax regime reserved for shipping companies, editor’s note) are not sufficient on their own. As Confitarma has always maintained, the choice of flag also depends on the speed of procedures, the certainty of timelines, and the ability to offer fully digital services. It is therefore necessary to continue with the digitisation of procedures, eliminate any remaining duplication of administrative requirements, promptly adopt the missing implementing measures and continue the work of updating the Navigation Code’.
