Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-02-Speech-1-112"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20001002.8.1-112"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, the European Union boasts great variety, yet we have a tendency to centralise everything and make it uniform. This is once again illustrated by Mr Piecyk’s report on seaports and inland ports. This report and these amendments, in fact, deal with a number of very different situations. As before, when we were discussing reports on marine pollution and air traffic, we need to draw a distinction between North and South, large and small, and policy which is driven by profit and that which is driven by environmental considerations. It is therefore not easy to use the same yardstick to assess all ports across the European Union. According to some, the report and its amendments enable small ports to strengthen their position, ports which are indispensable for the accessibility and survival of islands and remote coastal areas. Based on this viewpoint, every small port and every ferry port which handles a great deal of tourist traffic should feature on the European list. Port policy would then mainly focus on offering support to peripheral regions.
However, in Europe’s most densely populated area around the North Sea and the Channel, there are major ports, including that of my home town, Rotterdam. They are caught up in a bitter competitive battle, partly brought on by the fact that they are offering as many facilities as possible to transport companies at the lowest possible rates. Rotterdam wants to remain the world’s largest port and competes with Le Havre, Dunkirk, Zeebrugge, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Bremen and Hamburg for the same cargo volumes. There is even a notion that Rotterdam should be a “mainport” where all goods reaching the European west coast from other continents must be transhipped to vessels which distribute them to the surrounding ports. Other large ports too are striving for growth and dominance.
This competitive battle is at the expense of the environment and at the expense of the financial elbowroom of the large cities. European port policy should be able to do something about this and should be able to distribute the cargo volumes over a larger area. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find initiatives to this effect in any of the proposals."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples