A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #339 - European anti-cruise people are getting organized (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

From March 7 to 10, meetings took place in Marseille between the 
different collectives opposed to the cruise industry in Europe and 
recently united within the European Cruises Activist Network (ECAN). 
Organized by the Stop Croisière Marseille collective, around 20 groups 
responded to the call, 17 were ultimately able to send at least one 
person there. Of the thirty activists present, there were of course 
those from the different French maritime coasts, as well as activists 
from the Mediterranean coast of Spain (Valencia, Tarragona and 
Barcelona). The other country well represented was Italy, with groups 
from La Spezia, Trieste and Livorno. Moving away a little geographically 
we had the pleasure of seeing an activist come from Rotterdam, one from 
Piraeus, one from Kiel and one from London.
This weekend was first of all an opportunity to meet, and to be able to 
discuss our local issues inherent to the global growth of this leisure 
tourism industry. This was an opportunity to discover new themes, such 
as for example making the link between the constant increase in the 
number of landings on the Catalan coast and the problems of historical 
droughts which have affected this region in recent years. Indeed, the 
cruise industry also consumes a lot of fresh water. In regions where 
there is a shortage of fresh water, such as in Catalonia currently, too 
many cruise ship stopovers increase tension around this vital natural 
resource. This question, very specific to this region, is obviously not 
shared in Rotterdam, but could well arise in the years to come in other 
stopover regions around the Mediterranean.
Another theme that came up quite frequently during the discussions was 
the impact of our struggles on the development of this industry. In some 
cases where we have been able to observe a positive impact of the fight 
in a city, it is evident that this very capitalist industry is finding 
ways to develop elsewhere in order to compensate for the loss due to our 
actions. This is also the case in Barcelona, where the public 
highlighting of the impacts of cruise line stopovers has enabled 
companies to develop new stopovers in the neighboring city of Tarragona 
in recent years. We also see this on a smaller scale in La Ciotat, where 
actions carried out a few years ago transferred part of the problem to 
other bays in the sector. This therefore confirms to us the importance 
of organizing collectively and maintaining a link between port 
communities to act together in solidarity. Moreover, the motto of the 
weekend was obviously "Cruise, neither here nor elsewhere". The fight 
against the cruise industry must therefore be considered "global", both 
geographically and politically. Once again, these two examples, among 
others emerging from our discussions, show us that it is unthinkable to 
want to eliminate this industry without radically criticizing the world 
that created this monster. The fight against cruises necessarily 
involves the fight against capitalism!

Arturo, Marseille, March 11, 2024

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4132
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