In the initiative, signed by the spokesperson and sole member of parliament of the People-Animals-Nature party, Inês Sousa Real, she warns that according to a study by the European Federation for Transport and Environment, published in June last year, “Portugal occupies, in absolute terms, 6th place among the European countries with the highest levels of pollution by sulphur oxide emitted by cruise ships (emitting around 20 times more than cars in circulation in the country)”.

The member of parliament states that Lisbon was the European port with the highest cruise ship traffic and that it appears, together with the port of Funchal, “in the top 10 of the list of the most polluting European ports”.

For PAN, in the case of the country's capital, “there is still no strong hand to deal with the impact caused by the growing number of cruise ships that flock to the terminal located next door to the city's historic area”.

“There are studies that estimate that a large cruise ship can have a carbon footprint greater than 12,000 cars”, it warns.

In this context, Inês Sousa Real recommends that the PSD/CDS-PP Government adopt a set of measures that aim to limit pollution from cruise tourism, starting with “modernising national ports in ways that make them more sustainable”.

PAN advocates implementing in all national ports, as is already the case in Lisbon, the obligations set out in the regulation on the creation of an infrastructure for alternative fuels, “with regard to the supply of electricity from the onshore grid to cruise ships by 2030”.

PAN also wants the Government to ensure that annual data on “cruises embarking and/or disembarking at national port terminals include the disclosure of data on their environmental impact” and that a study be prepared “on the country’s cargo capacity for cruise tourism, assessing, based on the results, the possibility of implementing limits on the entry of large cruise ships into national ports or the need to comply with certain environmental standards for docking.”

Inês Sousa Real also recommends that the minority executive defend and support international initiatives that aim to “ensure an expansion of Controlled Emissions Areas in Europe, in terms that include all the seas of the countries of the European Union and the United Kingdom” and that it “make all necessary efforts to implement a controlled emissions area in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, which guarantees coverage of the Exclusive Economic Zones of the coastal countries from Portugal to Greenland”.