Port accessAt its Santurtzi facilities, the Port Authority of Bilbao hosted the meeting of the European Seaports Association Intermodal Transport and Logistics Committee. This committee is made up of representatives of the main European ports, and counts on among others, the regular participation of representatives of DG MOVE, DG TAXUD and of INEA, the entity in charge of the TEN-T programme.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the ports of Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bahía de Algeciras, Copenhagen-Malmo, Ghent, Hamburg, Livorno, Marseilles, Riga, Rotterdam, Valencia, Zeebrugge, Spanish State Ports, the Norwegian Ports Association, the British Ports Association and the Italian Ports Association.
In his welcoming words, Asier Atutxa, the Chairman of the Port Authority of Bilbao, stressed the points that the Committee and the Port of Bilbao have in common with regard to promoting Short Sea Shipping, Motorways of the Sea, intermodal platforms in the interior and the road, rail and maritime intermodal corridors.
At the meeting, participants dealt with issues such as the implantation of Motorways of the Sea from 2014-2020 within the framework of the successor to the Marco Polo Programme; the new TEN-T directives with the nomination of the new EU coordinators and the development of working programmes and the results of the survey carried out by the ESPO Secretariat concerning the needs for developing infrastructure in ports. This survey will be presented to the European Union so that it will know the budget that should be assigned to ports inside the Trans-European Transport Networks; likewise the scheme for Customs collaboration that DG TAXUD proposes to solve port-interest areas like Customs harmonization, the Blue Belt project, e-manifest and the single window based on Directive 2010/65.
In addition, the impact on ports of the Sulphur Emission Control Area (SECA) regulation was analysed along with possible steps to be taken so as to face the new scenario. At the end of the meeting, the PORTOPIA Project was presented: this is about the most relevant port performance indicators for Port Authorities from the users’ viewpoint and within the UE context in fields such as
intermodal connectivity and adaptability.
The Port Authority has collaborated with ESPO on different committees since the mid nineties, with the participation of the Direction of Operations and Logistics and the Commercial Department of the Port Authority. In addition, through the Manager for Competitiveness, it has presided the Intermodal Transport and Logistics Committee since November 2012.
EU Officials present
Mr. Valente de Oliveira, EU Coordinator for Motorways of the Sea (AdM) and Mr. José Laranjeira Anselmo, chief administrator of the DG MOVE AdM area were outstanding participants at the meeting of the European Seaports Association Intermodal Transport and Logistics Committee. They set out the development of the Motorways and their results since 2001 as well as their future within the context of the new TEN-T programme directives.
As a result of their visit, the Port Authority has organized a meeting with Short Sea Shipping operators and Customs in the Port of Bilbao, so that they can explain to them their plans and priorities with regard to Short Sea Shipping and Motorways of the Sea. Thus, the Port of Bilbao’s perspective may be born in mind in the work programme that is being developed for the AdM, and will serve as a reference for later presentation of projects.
