Motorways of the Sea – from Concept to Implementation Within the Baltic Sea Area
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Informationen zur Raumentwicklung Heft 7/8.2012 381 Motorways of the sea – from concept Maciej Matczak to implementation within the Baltic Sea area 1 The concept of Motorways van Miert Report) in 2003. The Report con- of the Sea sidered the concept as one of the eighteen new infrastructure projects in the European A free movement of commodities, citizens Union. The fact that the Report defines four and financial resources are pillars of the main areas of concept implementation is European Union. For that reason, an ef- also of great significance. The four main ar- ficient and effective transport system is a eas are as follows (High Level Group TEN-T necessary element for the functioning and 2003): development of the EU. A variety of geogra- (1) Motorway of the Baltic Sea phical and special structures of cargo flows as well as environmental concerns require (2) Motorways of the Sea of Western Europe modern and friendly transport and logistics (leading from the Iberian peninsula via the solutions for Europe. The Motorways of the Atlantic Arc to the North Sea and the Irish Sea (MoS) concept aims at introducing new Sea) intermodal maritime-based logistics chains (3) Motorways of the Sea of South-East Eu- in the EU. These chains should be more rope (connecting the Adriatic Sea with the sustainable and more efficient in commer- Ionian Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean cial terms than road transport. including Cyprus) The qualification “motorways of the sea” (4) Motorways of the Sea of South-West Eu- was for the first time defined in the White rope (Western Mediterranean) connecting Paper “European transport policy for 2010: Spain, France, Italy including Malta and time to decide” (European Commission linking the Motorways of the Sea to South- 2001). The Commission proposed the devel- East Europe. opment of MoS as a “real competitive alter- native to land transport”. Unfortunately, the Additionally, the Report defines a list of pre- authors of the document did not present a requisites or parallel actions for successfully precise definition of the sea motorway con- launching the new sea motorway projects: cept, which consists of several, generally • concentrating freight on maritime routes known transport policy ideas such as short sea shipping, sustainable development, in- • convincing haulers, shippers and forwar- termodal transport, shifting the balance ders about the benefits and merits of the between the modes of transport, linking maritime alternative modes of transport, and development of • eliminating customs checks and other Trans-European Transport Infrastructure. administrative burdens and developing To sum up, according to the document, sea electronic reporting for port authorities motorways should become a “real competi- • providing appropriate facilities that tive alternative to land transport”. should preferably be specifically desig- According to the assumptions, the concept ned for this activity (e.g. ro-ro terminals, of sea motorways consists of several ship- logistic equipment, parking places) and ping line connections which are an exten- direct access to ports sion of land routes. MoS should substitute • adhering to free market competition ru- land transport and resolve bottleneck prob- les lems on roads. Main elements of the MoS concept are shipping connections, seaports, • ensuring year-round navigability in the regulations and coordination issues. Baltic Sea with icebreakers. Dr. Maciej Matczak A very important element of the sea motor- The network of Motorways of the Sea con- Gdynia Maritime University way implementation process is placing the sists of facilities and infrastructure of at ul. Morska 81–87 81-225 Gdynia concept on the list of the priority projects in least two ports in two different Member Poland the Report of the High Level Group on the States. The sea motorway should consist of E-Mail: Trans-European Transport Network (Karel the following elements: port facilities, elec- [email protected] Maciej Matczak: 382 Motorways of the sea – from concept to implementation within the Baltic Sea area tronic logistics management systems and tural Funds by Member States or their re- administrative and customs procedures as gions or federal states (infrastructure). Ac- well as infrastructure for direct land and tually, TEN-T and Marco Polo funding are sea access including winter access to secure of crucial importance for the MoS concept year-round safety navigation. development (see Table 1). The foregoing report has become a basis for The calls for MoS project proposals were redefining priority projects in 2003/2004. In launched in 2005 (within TEN-T) and 2007 the Decision No. 884/2004/EC of the Euro- (Marco Polo) by the TEN-T Executive Agen- pean Parliament and the Council of 29 April cy (TEN-TEA) and the Executive Agency 2004 formal approval of the projects and for Competitiveness and Innovation (EACI, new guidelines for Trans-European Net- Transformation of Intelligent Energy Execu- (1) works (TEN) were established. Thirty new tive Agency). These special agencies are re- Priority Project 21: West Med Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN- sponsible for implementing the TEN-T and Corridors (2006), High Qual- ity Rail and Intermodal Nordic T) projects were indicated among which Marco Polo programmes on behalf of the Corridor Königslinie (2008), 21 incorporated the MoS concept. Despite European Commission. Moreover; they ef- Motorways of the Sea projects plenty of documents issued, discussing the in the Baltic Sea Area Klai- ficiently manage the entire project life cycle péda-Karlshamn link (2008), notion of a sea motorway, a detailed defi- (organizing calls, supporting the Member Motorways of the Sea Esbjerg- nition of the concept was not developed at States), prepare financial decisions and pro- Zeebrugge (2008), Baltic Link Gdynia-Karlskrona (2009), MoS that time. vide feedback to the European Commission. 24 (2010), MOS4MOS (2010), So far, the MoS projects, which have been MIELE (2010), Motorway of A more precise definition of the MoS was the Sea Rostock-Gedser established in Vademecum issues in con- selected and financed by the Agencies, are (2010), The Baltic Sea Hub and as follows: Spokes Project (2010), MonaLi- junction with the call for proposals TEN-T sa (2010), LNG infrastructure of 2005. The document indicates crucial ele- 1. TEN-TEA: 12 projects (calls 2006–2010)1 filling stations and deployment ments of the MoS concept like eligibility of in ships (2010) 2 projects, evaluation criteria, beneficiaries 2. EACI: 3 projects (calls 2007–2010) . (2) Marco Polo: Ro-Ro Past France and eligible costs or financing plan with re- It could be stated that the portion of MoS (2007), FRES MOS (2009), Gulf- lationships to other support programmes. in overall transport projects is very low: in stream.mos (2010) According to the document, the eligible case of TEN-T, MoS projects only constitute (3) costs of the programme included: 0.7% of the total budget (TEN-TEA 2011). The TEN-T budget is divided into two parts: Multiannual In- • investment aid in infrastructure and faci- Within the Marco Polo programme, 104 dicative Perspective (MIP) and projects were selected. Within this amount, Annual Perspective (non-MIP). lities Projects funded under the only three are MoS projects. Multi-Annual Calls (MIP) are • start-up aid related to capital costs expected to help complete the The financial sources available in the TEN-T network as approved • studies related to the Motorways of the framework of the MoS concept in the fund- by the European Parliament Sea projects. and the Council with a target ing period 2007–2013 for projects are as fol- completion date of 2020. In lows: general, Multi-Annual projects Moreover, the funding sources were point- are of a larger size and longer ed out in the TEN-Regulation and TEN-T • Marco Polo: approx. EUR 450 million al- duration than Annual projects. Guidelines (TEN-T fund), the Marco Polo 80 to 85 % of the TEN-T budg- located to five types of action (catalyst, et is allocated through Multi- programme, the Structural Fund Pro- Motorways of the Sea, modal shift, traffic Annual Calls. Annual Calls are grammes (Cohesion funds, ERDF, INTER- intended to complement the avoidance, common learning) Multi-Annual Calls, thus also REG) and in national state aid programmes. giving priority to projects that TEN-T funding has been applied for by the • TEN-T: approx. EUR 8 billion in total in- address key TEN-T issues such Member States (infrastructure), Marco Polo cluding about EUR 450 million for the as bottlenecks or cross-border 3 projects. funding by companies (service), EU Struc- MoS project . In both cases, TEN-T and Marco Polo, the last call for proposals was launched in 2011. In case of TEN-T, the call for proposals end- Table 1 ed (the deadline was 23 September 2011). Characteristics of TEN-T and Marco Polo support for the MoS concept The total budget of the call was EUR 150 Marco Polo TEN-T million, for MoS EUR 40 million (European - Transport services - Infrastructure and facilities Commission 2011a). The financial contri- - Ancillary infrastructures - Start-up aid - Modal shift objective - Creation of a transport network bution of TEN-T co-financing for MoS in - Private sector driver - Public sector driven 2011 is 20 % for infrastructure works and - Direct call for proposals - Member State pre-selection facilities (implementation projects), 30 % Source: www.mos-helpdesk.eu (20.07.2010) for cross-border sections, 50 % for pilot ac- Informationen zur Raumentwicklung Heft 7/8.2012 383 tions, 50 % for studies or study parts of pro- unit (TEU) in 2009 and 7.395 million TEU in jects, 30 % for start-up aid, i.e. depreciation 2010 (with a majority of feeder traffic, Matc- of capital costs. zak 2011b: 13). The Marco Polo call for proposals 2011 re- The Baltic Sea is almost an inland sea of ferring to MoS was open until 16 January the European Union.