(The Hague) Several members of the environmental organisation Extinction Rebellion (XR) tied themselves to a lock on Sunday, stopping a cruise ship sailing to the Dutch capital until police intervened, according to a spokeswoman for the Port of Amsterdam.
THE Serenade of the Seas, A huge ship with a thousand cabins “can continue its route to Amsterdam” after being blocked for several hours by activists, Carlijn van Essen told AFP.
“Oil kills, stop cruise ships,” activists wrote on a lock they tied themselves to on Sunday morning, according to footage broadcast live online.
They were located on two locks of the huge IJmuiden complex, northwest of the capital: Noordersluis and Zeesluis. An oil tanker was also blocked, said Mme From Essen.
PHOTO BERNARD BRAULT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The cruise ship Serenade of the Seasduring a visit to Quebec
Police intervened around 5 p.m. (11 a.m. Eastern Time), according to Dutch news agency ANP.
Eight activists were “administratively moved”, “taken to the police station and then released”, but no one was arrested, a spokesperson for the police told this media.
This is the second week in a row that this type of action, calling for an end to the highly polluting giant ships, has been organised at the gates of the Dutch capital.
Last week, 2,000 passengers from a cruise ship had to be evacuated by bus and then taken by train to Amsterdam and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Dutch public media outlet NOS reported.
The leader of the VVD party (centre-right) and outgoing minister Dilan Yesilgöz condemned this new action on X, accusing the environmentalists of causing “nuisance, enormous costs for society and entrepreneurs” and “wasting precious police resources”.
“What nerve,” XR responded on the social network. “Years of failed climate policy, a planet on fire, climate extremes one after the other and then to find this [nuisible] “Let concerned citizens make themselves heard,” they added.
According to a study by the NGO Transport and Environment, cruise ships sailing in European waters in 2022 emitted more than 8 million tonnes of CO2the equivalent of 50,000 Paris-New York flights.
The reduction in the number of maritime cruises from 2026 is part of a series of measures defined by the municipality of Amsterdam in recent months, aimed at ensuring a “sustainable tourism economy”.