Environmental organizations criticize use of flag of convenience on cruises

The 'Stop Creuers' environmental organizations against cruises in Catalonia criticized the use of the flag of convenience during the first day of a series of debates held on Wednesday in Barcelona, before a second one in the southern city of Tarragona on Thursday.

A flag of convenience means that boat owners can register the cruise wherever country they prefer and, therefore, obey local legislation such as the ones in Panama, Marshal Islands, and Malta with a "more favorable law," Jacob Armstrong, sustainable shipping officer at Transport & Environment Federation, said.

Armstrong also pointed out that these flags allow to "pay fewer taxes and reduce labor standards."

Not having a cruise registered in the country where it sails, such as in Spain, means that these companies "are not paying their taxes in Spain," Marta Ribera, economic justice technician at the Observatory Desk, an NGO working towards the recognition and protection of cultural, social and economic rights, said.

Labor is also one of the major issues under the concept of the flag of convenience, as Angela Teberga, a tourism professor at Brazil's Brasilia University, said.

"Employees work between 10 and 14 hours per day, with around 100 hours per week on average," she said before explaining that these ships are also considered to be "sweatshops" because of the "precarious and unacceptable conditions." Something that could be translated as 'sweat factories.'

"Work is very precarious when cruise companies use flags of convenience because ships are based in countries that lack labor security. In the industry, there are many accidents," Jacob Armstrong said.

Huge effect in Catalonia

The cruise industry in Catalonia has a huge effect on residents as only in 2019, the last full year before the Covid-19 pandemic, a total of 3.5 million tourists visited Barcelona after docking with a cruise ship.

Only that August, 400,000 cruise ship passengers disembarked in the Catalan capital, making Barcelona the leading city in the number of cruises in the Mediterranean.

And all these figures have a direct impact on the biodiversity in Catalonia, as 47 cruises pollute the same as 100 million cars, as Jacob Armstrong said.

And pollution is not only local, as "these vessels sail from port to port as fastest as possible as passengers do not want to spend time in the boat but prefer to visit the cities," Armstrong added.

In fact, he pointed out that these "floating cities" produce tons of garbage that "while companies should take them to the port, sometimes they just let the garbage in the middle of the sea."

Liquefied natural gas

'Heavy Fuel Oil' is the "most dangerous fuel there is," Jacob Armstrong said, as it has high levels of metals and sulfurs dangerous for humans.

In 2020, as Armstrong explained, the fuel was changed. Many more boats are using liquified natural gas, which he considers a "fake solution" to pollution as "even though companies and the cruise ships industry say that it is greener for cruises and less polluting for the air, in reality, liquified natural gas is 90% natural gas, which warms the Earth 80 times faster than carbon dioxide."

Something Marta Ribera agrees with and calls on "sanctioning" the use of liquified natural gas as it is "even worse than fossil fuels."

Currently, 20% of vessels at Barcelona port use liquified natural gas.

Massively touristified areas

There are two types of cruises, those that have their starting and ending points in Barcelona, and the ones that just spend a day. 

"The vast majority of vessels spend less than 12 hours in the port, causing massively touristified areas, as visitors are only in the city for four to six hours," Daniel Pardo, a member of the Gothic Quarter’s neighbors’ association as well as the Tourism Degrowth Assembly, said during the 'Stop Creuers' debate.

Boats force to have "a lot of people at the same time in specific sites, and it also increases road mobility and the number of passersby," he added.

And while visitors do spend money during their journey, "local stores are being replaced by shops just tourist-oriented and difficulting daily life for local neighbors," Pardo, who is also a long-time Ciutat Vella resident, said.

Environmental organizations are also against cruises that start and finish in Barcelona as for them, these vessels are just "fake solutions driven by public administration, as well as financially and interested parties."

"This one is a fake debate, which avoids talking about the real one, which is whether yes or no to cruises and how many," Prado concluded.