The Port of Rotterdam Authority(PoRa) believes that the recently published EU White Paper on Transport is in line with the draft Port Vision 2030, the long-term vision announced by the Port of Rotterdam Authority.
In general, the PoRA agrees with the objectives and concrete measures announced by the European Commission (EC). Rotterdam does see some issues with the Paper, which argues for the distribution of import goods across more ports (so called “entry ports”) on the one hand and for bundling in favour of developing a multimodal core network on the other hand. Furthermore, the PoRA is of the opinion that the EC is too rigid in its approach to the modal split.
Rigid
For example, the Commission finds that the distance between the port and final destination must be at least 300 kilometres in order to develop initiatives for shifting freight transport from the road to inland waterways or the railways (the so-called “modal shift”). The PoRA is asking that the minimum distance be halved to 150 km. Currently, inland waterway transport is already competing with road transport by a distance of 50 km from the Port of Rotterdam, for example, to the inland port of Alphen aan den Rijn. In Rotterdam ‘the’ minimum distance for railway transport is 200 kilometres. Cutting this official limit in half would mean that more initiatives would be eligible for support from the EU. The PoRA supports the goal of the EC to shift 30% of overland freight transport to the railways and inland waterways by 2030 and 50% of this traffic by 2050.
ECAs
The port authority is arguing for an even playing field for both economic and ecological reasons. It fully supports existing international agreements within the International Maritime Organization for sharpening the standard from 1% sulphur to 0.1% sulphur for ECAs (Emission Control Areas) in 2015. The Port of Rotterdam Authority believes that this should apply not only to the North Sea and Baltic Sea ECAs, but to all coastal waters.
Core topics
White Paper topics important to the Port of Rotterdam Authority:
-Multimodal network of main connections
-Market access and transparency
-Decarbonisation of transportation and environment
-Funding mechanism
[mappress]
Source: PoRa, July 8, 2011