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EFIP Spring Newsletter 2020
May 2020
As Europe moves into the next stage of the Covid-19 crisis, EFIP would like to highlight both how inland ports have been coping throughout the crisis, and our previous work on the European Green Deal and alternative fuels. Navigating through this crisis has been hard for ports but what comes next - the reopening and recovery of our economy and trade flows - will prove even harder, requiring far reaching support from across regional, national and European governments. At the same time, we have to keep looking towards the future in order to fully develop the potential of inland ports as enablers of green logistics.
EFIP’s response to the coronavirus crisis
As the coronavirus crisis hit Europe last month, inland ports in Europe continued to play their critical role as key multimodal hubs for the smooth and continued functioning of multiple European supply chains. Therefore, EFIP called on Member States to note the critical functions undertaken by inland ports and take measures to support and ensure the continued operations of ports. A top priority in this respect is to ensure that borders in the EU remain open for the transport of goods to avoid any negative impacts on the supply chain.
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European Green Deal
To put to one side the most conspicuous news event of 2020, the European Green Deal remains the word on all European policy makers lips, currently invoked by many policy-makers and politicians as a possible path out of the crisis caused by COVID-19. EFIP published its response to the European Green Deal in its Position Paper on February 18, supporting the ambitions of the new Commission, signalling IWT policy issues and highlighting a number of areas where inland ports could play a vital role in the green transition.
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Alternative Fuels Infrastructure
The first few months of 2020 were busy for alternative fuel infrastructure policy. As well as the opening of the evaluation on the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive, the Energy Taxation Directive was similarly opened for evaluation and a new piece of legislation encouraging alternative fuels demand was announced. EFIP also made contact with the project managers of the Commission’s ‘European Alternative Fuels Observatory’ (EAFO) to support the Commission’s project in creating a comprehensive database of alternative fuels infrastructure locations.
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(c) Port autonome de Liège
News from the Port of Mannheim
The Port of Mannheim is both a logistics hub and a centre of Industry, around 400 companies currently operate in the port. The port led Germany as the first inland port with a container terminal and today around 8 million tonnes of goods handled at the port are shipped via inland waterways. On top of that, a further 3 million tonnes of goods reach the port via rail. The amount of waterway-transported goods is, however, forecast to fall as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Open Innovation Challenge
EFIP together with thinkport VIENNA is holding an open innovation challenge around the subject of “Inland ports as enablers of green logistics and sustainability”.
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