The president of the Port Authority of the Bay of Algeciras (APBA), Gerardo Landaluce, is participating this week in the Polish city of Gdansk at the 2026 Conference of the European Ports Organization (ESPO), an organization of which he is the vice president. The meeting, held under the slogan "Competitiveness as a driver of resilience," brings together in Poland the main port leaders and representatives from the maritime community of the European Union to discuss issues related to the scope of the Fit for 55 package.
Landaluce spoke during a round table where advances in meeting decarbonization goals without losing competitiveness were analyzed. In this context, the president of the APBA warned: "It is necessary to regulate from a strategic and global perspective because traffic can be recovered, but investments cannot," referring to the flight of investments that is already being provoked by the implementation of the emissions trading system (ETS) in European ports.
In 2026, coinciding with its third year of application, the European Union plans to review the maritime ETS. For this reason, Landaluce emphasized that "now is the time to seize the opportunity to properly define the scope of application of the community directive" that requires the fleet to pay for its emissions, but only when docking at community ports. This circumstance is causing shifts in calls to third countries, as has been demonstrated by studies conducted by the EU-ETS Observatory.
Gerardo Landaluce has also outlined the Port of Algeciras' commitment to decarbonization, detailing projects such as the deployment of electrical supply to ships at the dock (OPS), with an investment of over 92 million euros. Likewise, he referred to the Green Energy Hub initiative, which encompasses the various public and private actions being carried out in the Bay of Algeciras to produce, distribute, and utilize green fuels.
