It will take another five years for the operationalization of Darsena Europa, Italy’s second most massive port project, which should equip Livorno with new yards and quays with seabeds capable of hosting even the latest generation of container ships.
“The Darsena Europa is a work of national interest and it is pleasing to see that in five years this work will be operational,” declared the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Matteo Salvini during a visit to the construction site, thus certifying the 11-month slip from the last official date (November 2029).
The works, after all, as specified in the relevant note from the Port System Authority, are still in the preliminary phase: “To date, the first 450 meters of the offshore breakwater have been built, which will delimit a new 15-hectare reclamation basin (made necessary by the impossibility of reusing part of the dredging material that emerged after the contract was awarded, ed.) intended to host the material resulting from the foundation activities of the new breakwaters and which in the future will be consolidated to allow the landing of both the future Fi-Pi-Li (highway link, ed.) and the railway network. These are pre-operam construction site activities started while environmental monitoring activities are still ongoing,” explained the technical manager Enrico Pribaz.
“The entire package of these monitoring activities will be presented to the Ministry of the Environment in March 2026 for the final go-ahead. This last step is a prerequisite for the construction of the rest of the offshore works and the dredging activities,” added Pribaz. Overall, the construction of a 4.6 km external offshore dam is planned, composed of the new upwave breakwater and the new Meloria dam downwave (the old dam will be demolished). Internal dams for 2.3 km will then be built, which will delimit the new 130-hectare reclamation basins that will be added to the existing ones (70 hectares). As for dredging, 17 million cubic meters of material will be dredged, to bring the new access channel (north side entrance) to a depth of 17 meters and the quays to -16 meters, which, however, will be founded to withstand a seabed deepening to -20.
Meanwhile, the consolidation of the first reclamation basin is proceeding, scheduled for June 2027: “The work will allow us to have a finished level where the future concessionaire can build the pavement and operational yards. The port authority is also working on the infrastructural development of the current port. Not far from the construction site area, the Torre del Marzocco is visible, whose underlying quay must be cut back to widen the access channel to 125 meters. We are ready to start the intervention (which will last almost two years and which should have been completed by the end of 2025, ed.), we are only waiting for the compliance opinion from Mase for the exclusion from the EIA (Via),” Pribaz further emphasized.
On this occasion, the Port System Authority chaired by Davide Gariglio lastly recalled that “the work is already funded. But 130 million euros are still missing for the completion of the road and railway connections (70 million) and for the consolidation of the second reclamation basin (another 50 million). To these, the possible 40 million euros necessary to build a new bridge should then be added, which in the near future will allow all the yachts and superyachts from the shipyards located on the Navicelli Canal (which flows into the Scolmatore channel), to exit directly and easily into the open sea.”
Salvini’s response was ready: “A possible one hundred million euros more will not block the development of the port, this is out of the question.”
