Italy is urgently seeking cruise ships to put up world leaders and delegates at this year's G8 summit on an island off Sardinia.
Italy is urgently seeking cruise ships to put up world leaders and delegates at this year's G8 summit on an island off Sardinia.
Italy is to host some 25,000 people in and around the small Mediterranean archipelago in July for a three-day event, which media say has turned into a logistics nightmare.
The civil protection authority, which is in charge of the summit's organisation, has posted a tender for the ships on its website. Offers must be submitted by April 7.
La Repubblica newspaper said yesterday that a similar tender went unanswered last year, leaving organisers scrambling to find the ships with just over three months to go.
The MSC Fantasia, a 333m-long cruise liner carrying nearly 4,000 passengers, will host most of the world leaders and their delegations.
But it is unclear whether it will be able to dock on the La Maddalena island, where the summit is taking place, as its draft, the distance between the water line and the bottom of the hull, may be too deep. In that case, passengers will have to be ferried or flown back and forth to the island.
About 16,000 security personnel will be deployed for the summit and they have also been looking for ships.
Italy chose the Maddalena archipelago to keep protesters at bay and avoid a repeat of the violence that marred a G8 summit in Genoa in 2001.
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