Red Sea crisis costs Italy 95 million a day

The crisis in the Red Sea , where commercial ships crossing the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, to or from the Suez Canal, risk being attacked by Houthi rebels in Yemen, is already presenting a bill to Italian trade. And it is a 'salty' bill: 95 million are lost every day. According to Confartigianato, this is the amount of damage accumulated between November 2023 and January 2024 due to the crisis, totalling 8.8 billion.

In the last three months alone, Italy has lost 3.3 billion (35 million per day) due to missed or delayed exports and 5.5 billion (60 million per day) due to the lack of supply of manufacturing products. Confartigianato has calculated the impact of the drop in merchant ship traffic between the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea on Italy's trade flows with Asia, Oceania, the Persian Gulf countries and South-East Africa. Also under scrutiny is the impact on exports for each of the Italian regions: the highest value of products transported by sea through the Red Sea is that of Lombardy, amounting to 12.9 billion, followed by Emilia-Romagna with 9.4 billion, Veneto with 5.7 billion, Tuscany with 4.7 billion, Piedmont with 4.2 billion and Friuli-Venezia Giulia with 2 billion.

About 12% of international maritime trade passes through Suez, it should be remembered.

Numbers that make it clear why Italy, backed by France and Germany, at the EU Foreign Affairs Council that took place on Monday in Brussels strongly pushed for a European mission to protect merchant traffic. The operation will be called 'Aspides'. At last Monday's summit, as Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, explained, the launch of the EU mission in the Red Sea was agreed. "Now," he added, "we have to work towards unanimity on when," assuring that he wanted to complete the process for the launch of the operation as soon as possible. The official EU green light is expected on 19 February, at the next Council meeting. The rules of engagement will be the subject of technical work in Brussels by the Politico-Military Group (Pmg) and then by the Political and Security Committee (Cops). Italy will certainly send one frigate, which could even be two in rotation.

From Israel, where he was on a mission, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani explained that the objective of the military mission is to guarantee freedom of maritime transport from the Strait of Suez to the Strait of Hormuz. "We are committed with the other EU countries to build a new mission and there will definitely be Italian military ships to protect our merchant ships," he said. "Italy," he added, "relies heavily on exports and we have a duty to protect these vessels with navy ships that are ready to use weapons in the event of attacks that could endanger our merchant ships.