The northern expansion of the Port of Valencia is going to become one of the key demands of the Valencian Community to the Government of Pedro Sánchez, which keeps a public-private investment that exceeds 1,500 million paralyzed and prevents the growth of a leading infrastructure in the Mediterranean, which would also turn Valencia into a hub for international maritime trade, the largest port for interoceanic container traffic.

The president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, and the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, consider it “unavoidable” for work to be resumed to make this fourth terminal a reality.. In the words of the head of the Consell, “the delay is blocking the development of the Valencian economy and the private investments that are eager to come.”

The PP has always been in favor of the construction of the dock, but so has the PSOE, which makes it more incomprehensible for the Valencian Administrations why it is still blocked.. The president of State Ports, Álvaro Rodríguez Dapena, acknowledged yesterday at the inauguration of the president of the PAV, Mar Chao, that expansion is essential: “If only in the coming years international trade grows by half of what which has done so in recent years, we are going to need more terminals, and Valencia is where it is most advanced.

The position of the PSOE is also clear. Ximo Puig announced that the socialists would present motions in all institutions to demand an enlargement that “respects the environment and strictly complies with the European Green Deal.”

It is in their government partners that the discrepancy can arise, which in recent years have been championed by Compromís and Podemos but, especially, by the former mayor of Valencia Joan Ribó, whose harmony with Yolanda Díaz is total..

The Port of Valencia designed a northern expansion in 2006 that required the construction of breakwaters, docks to accommodate containers and an investment in access to the port.. The total cost of the infrastructure would be around 1,200 million euros and it received a favorable Environmental Impact Declaration (DIA) in 2007: the work would not affect the beaches in the south of the city or in La Albufera.. However, until 2012 only the dams were built. The rest was left in the drawer due to the economic crisis and it was not until 2018 when the bidding document for the new container terminal, the port's fourth, was resumed and approved.

Just one year later, in September 2019, the Port Authority of Valencia (APV) awarded the construction and management to the company Terminal Investment Ltd.. (TIL), a subsidiary of the MSC group, which will cost 1,021 million of the total work. Another 542.7 million euros must be provided by the State.

With this work, the Valencian port would have the capacity to accommodate five million more containers on an area of 137 hectares and 1,700 meters of docking line, an automatic, low-emission terminal that would involve hiring half a thousand stevedores.

Everything seemed ready when it ran aground. MSC made a modification to the project to locate the terminal not in the internal waters of the breakwater, but in the northern part, thus favoring the arrival of larger and less mobile ships, and this caused the left-wing parties, especially Compromís , with Ribó at the helm, questioned the validity of the EIS and demanded another study in accordance with the new environmental legislation of 2013.

Although the APV had already renounced those parts of the expansion that conflicted with the new regulation, the pressure on the Government did not stop. The controversy reached the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament, where PP and PSOE were in favor.

In March 2021, State Ports issued a “favorable report” on the dock project, but warned that the PAV “must issue a certification that the project does not require undergoing a new environmental procedure.”. Along the same lines, the Ministry of Ecological Transition granted the Port Authority the status of “substantive body” in the expansion project and, therefore, the ability to decide whether or not to subject it to environmental evaluation.

This decision was judicialized by the citizen platform Comissió Ciutat-Port and caused the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid to suspend it as a precautionary measure, once again complicating the decision of the Council of Ministers.