Brigitte Grouwels makes five recommendations to support European inland ports
The Brussels Minister represents Belgium at the Informal Meeting of EU Transport Ministers in Antwerp. Today, Brigitte Grouwels (Flemish Christian Democrats), Minister of the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region responsible for Transport, Public Works and the Port of Brussels, addressed the Informal EU Council of Transport Ministers in Antwerp.
The theme of this Informal Council of Ministers is "Towards a full integration of maritime transport into the EU transport and logistics chain". In her speech, Minister Brigitte Grouwels mainly spoke about the bottlenecks for co-modal transport (transfer from sea transport to inland navigation, train and road transport) in the logistics chain of the internal EU market. Specifically, Brigitte Grouwels made five recommendations to support European inland ports as logistics nodes.
As Brussels Minister, Brigitte Grouwels currently represents Belgium in the EU Council of Transport Ministers. In this capacity, she stands in for Etienne Schouppe, State Secretary for Mobility in the Federal Government, who now chairs this European Council of Ministers.
Minister Brigitte Grouwels opened the session with a speech about the bottlenecks for co-modal transport in the logistics chain. As Brussels Minister competent for the Port of Brussels, she also emphasised the link between sea and inland ports. The Port of Brussels, for instance, is ideally located for transport by inland waterways from the Port of Antwerp.
Minister Brigitte Grouwels: The integration of maritime transport in the logistics chain requires a well-developed network of co-modal transfer nodes, both in the sea and inland ports. This development must become a central component in future EU policy. With this, account must be taken of environmental aspects and of the urban nature of the inland ports The recreational and residential functions of the waterside must not come at the expense of the crucial development of the inland ports as co-modal nodes."
Therefore Minister Brigitte Grouwels also made five specific recommendations in support of the European inland ports:
1. Sufficient free space on the waterside should be allocated to water-related economic activities and not only to recreational or residential activities;
2. Ports must also be able to count on financial support for their integration in an urban environment;
3. The policy to recover external costs for the different modes of transport should be continued, as this would enhance the competitiveness of inland waterway shipping. Specifically, Minister Brigitte Grouwels is considering the implementation of the Eurovignette Directive. This directive would stimulate the European Member States to charge for the external costs (environmental and noise nuisance) of goods transport;
4. In order to enable the integration of short sea shipping into the logistics chain, infrastructural bottlenecks for coastal navigation must be eliminated: bridge heights, dimensions of locks, dedicated berths, etcetera;
5. Non-used funds from the ‘Motorways of the Seas’ and ‘Marco Polo’ programmes should be reallocated to the development of co-modal nodes, thus avoiding the need to increase the overall EU budget. Inland ports should make use of this opportunity to improve their infrastructure.
