The action was called by Italian hauliers’ group Trasportounito over the long-running dispute about diesel prices and the ability of operators to recover fuel costs. Diesel has remained above €2 per litre, prompting the group to call the stoppage.
Italy’s strike watchdog raised a formal objection in late March, arguing the notice period was too short and that it fell too close to a separate haulage protest already scheduled in Sicily. Despite that intervention, the stoppage remains listed in Italy’s official transport ministry strike register with no cancellation recorded as of Thursday 17 April.
That means the safest working assumption is that disruption will go ahead unless an official withdrawal is published before Monday.
What to expect
The most direct impact will be on domestic Italian collections and deliveries and cross-border road freight into and out of the country. Intermodal shipments that rely on trucking at either end of a rail journey are also at risk.
DHL issued a customer notice on 15 April, warning that international transport capacity could be affected and that delays might run into the following week. The carrier said affected shipments would be moved to the next available departures.
No matching national rail or port strike is listed for the same dates, though a regional rail stoppage in Calabria is scheduled for 23 April alongside separate local public transport disruptions elsewhere. Some logistics providers are nonetheless planning for wider knock-on effects, particularly at ports and on rail connections that feed into road legs.
Sicily protest shows what disruption could look like
The nationwide action comes just after a five-day haulage stoppage in Sicily, which began on 14 April and was called by the Comitato Trasportatori Siciliani. Italy’s transport ministry listed that action as a regional freight stoppage in Sicily, while trade press reported that it quickly started to slow logistics flows on the island.
According to TrasportoEuropa, the Sicilian protest was marked by high participation, estimated at around 90%, but without road blockades. Instead, the pressure point was the ports: loading and unloading activity was suspended, and road links between ports and distribution centres were disrupted. Another TrasportoEuropa report said the stoppage was expected to affect all Sicilian commercial ports, with semi-trailer handling from ships effectively frozen.
That had visible knock-on effects on the supply chain. FreshPlaza Italia reported that pickets and demonstrations were concentrated around the main ports of Catania, Palermo, Messina and Termini Imerese, with around 3,000 trailers and containers at a standstill and about 100,000 pallets of goods for large-scale retail distribution left undelivered on the first day. The same report said the lack of trucks moving in and out of ports was creating a bottleneck across the wider logistics chain.
