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INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS
2.3 European Policy of Short Sea Shipping
JANURAY 2011
VOL 2, NO 9
In June 2006 the European Council updated their environmental policy for a sustainable
development and identified seven key areas (DAHLSTRÖM and SUNDBOM, 2008):
i. Climate changes and clean energy
ii. Sustainable consumption and production
iii. Protection and managing of nature resources
iv. Human health and social integration
v. Demography and migration
vi. Poverty and sustainable development
vii. Sustainable transportations
In the EU, road transport has increased and represents today 44 percent of the gods transport
market. This has resulted that the capacity of the infrastructure for roads is not enough to
cover the demand and this leads to congestion. Road transport is today connected to emissions
which are harmful to the environment and human accidents. The European Council has
discussed several approaches to deal with the issue of road transports. One line of action is to
reduce the unbalance between the transport modes which today are is dominated by road. The
method to create a more smooth balance would be to move cargo to other transport modes
such as rail, inland waterways and SSS. This would reduce the heavy congestion (European
Commission).
The capacity for short sea shipping within Europe is not maximized and this was the incentive
to why the European Commission came up with the ―master plan‖ to establish ―sea motor
ways‖. This will require well developed modernized ports which have support for intermodal
transports and are well connected to rail- and inland waterway transport networks. Short sea
shipping could be the solution to bypass bottleneck points such as the Alps and the Pyrenees.
2.4 Motorways of the Sea
―Motor Ways of The Sea‖ was a term that first was mentioned in the White paper European
transport policy for 2010. This concept purpose is to promote short sea shipping as a
competitive alternative the road transport (HARALAMBOUS). Maritime policy is today
focused at three areas; Reduce externalities, Promote trade and Create maritime business. This
means that masseurs are done to make the externalities which are related to transport activities
decrease. Integration and competiveness are promoted by improving transport services.
Taxable income and Employment are being generated to create maritime business (BAIRD,
2005).
According to the European commission are there four sea-corridors which have been chosen
to form the ―motorways of the sea‖ in Europe. As you could see from the figure below, these
are according to European Commission:
� Motorway of the Baltic Sea (linking the Baltic Sea Member States with Member States
in Central and Western Europe, including the route through the North Sea/Baltic Sea
canal).
� Motorway of the Sea of western Europe (leading from Portugal and Spain via the
Atlantic Arc to the North Sea and the Irish Sea)
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