Untitled - Ministerstwo Rozwoju Regionalnego

dard of cargo delivery and passenger handling services. This requires seaports –
links of land-to-sea supply chains – to adapt to transport clients' higher and diversified
quality demands.
Commodities transferred through seaports in international trade and passenger
traffic in particular, are subject to growing competition from alternative
transport routes which omit – partly or entirely – seaports. This situation, diminishing
port throughput, more and more often occurs in European international
trade and passenger traffic. Multi-modal land transport systems, transcontinental
land bridges and cheap air transport are strong competition to transport
via seaports.
Apart from the development of international seaborne trade, structural
changes in transport are an essential factor influencing the development of seaports.
These changes result from the adaptation of transport to the requirements
of modern trade, but they are also a consequence of economic, social and political
transformations in the development of countries, regions and continents.
For some time now, a particularly important element of structural transformations
in transport (affecting seaports as well) has been the necessity to reduce
the environmental impact of transport and to develop an environment-friendly
modal split, thus limiting the negative impact on the quality of life. This is an
important trend, because it may bring more tasks and further development to
environment-friendly maritime transport, seaports included.
Europe, particularly Western and Central Europe, is still the main area of
structural changes in transport in the world. For years, the major goals of these
changes have been focusing on the problems which reflect the provisions included
in the latest two documents on the EU transport policy in the first decade
of the 21st century. In spite of the fact that they mainly refer to the EU countries,
the documents are highly universal. One of them – the White Paper of
2001 3 - outlines the directions of the EU transport policy up till 2010, the other
one – the Green Paper of June 2006 4 issued by the European Commission – refers
to the EU future maritime policy.
Both documents treat maritime transport and seaports in a specific way. The
White Paper, stressing the significance and relevance of the current goal of the
EU transport policy, i.e. sustainable development, regards transport as comprehensive
integration of all the kinds of transport, interrelated and mutually complementary.
For the first time, the EU so clearly perceives maritime transport as
an integral part of the transport chain, outlining a detailed policy of closely connecting
shipping and seaports with the other transport modes.
3 White Paper – European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide. European Communities, 2001.
4 Green Paper Towards a Future Maritime Policy for the Union: A European Vision for the Oceans and Seas.
Brussels, 7.6.2006, COM(2006) 275 final.
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