Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-11-Speech-1-155"
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"en.20050411.19.1-155"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to congratulate Mr Navarro on his excellent report.
I therefore thank you, Mr Navarro, and I am now keen, Mr President, to hear the comments that will follow the report.
I think, and the Committee on Transport and Tourism’s report bears this out, that short sea shipping is an issue on which there is broad agreement between Parliament, the Member States and the Commission. We all know that short sea shipping is an excellent method of transport that, even so, could be developed further. It is the only method of transport, other than rail, able to confront the growth in road transport. It is therefore necessary to increase funding to the short sea shipping industry.
I would like to draw attention to certain key aspects of your report, Mr Navarro. We certainly do need an integrated approach if we are going to make short sea shipping a real door-to-door solution. The new definition set out in the recitals to the report could inspire this integration and contribute to it. The intermodal dimension of this new definition could be used to supplement the modal definition set out in 1999 and commonly accepted across Europe.
Furthermore, a great deal of work has been done to overcome the obstacles that prevent the growth of short sea shipping. I would like to mention the Directive on the standard IMO-FAL forms for ships arriving in and departing from ports, based on the International Maritime Organisation’s Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic. This directive means that the number of different forms in force in Europe has fallen from more than 50 to just five.
The Commission has also raised the issue of customs several times. The current move towards a one-stop shop for administrative formalities and electronic communications will further facilitate short sea shipping. The efficiency of ports is, of course, crucial for short sea shipping, and the adoption of a new proposal for a directive on access to the market of port services should help us, although I have taken note of Parliament’s concern to pay careful attention to the way in which we finalise this text.
One effective way of promoting the intermodal image of short sea shipping lies in the business-oriented work of short sea promotion centres. These national centres are running a campaign promoting this mode of transport, a campaign which is of course neutral in commercial terms. There are currently 17 of these centres operating within Europe to pass on our policies, and Mr Navarro was quite right to draw attention to all these efforts.
The motorways of the sea are a special form – I would call them a brand – of short sea shipping. They combine higher quality with an increase in quantity. By linking ports forming part of trans-European transport networks, they will be able to bypass land bottlenecks and improve cohesion. I would like to pay particular attention to this initiative so that the legal text can become a reality and be applied.
The Marco Polo programme, and in particular the future Marco Polo II programme, will have a crucial part to play in implementing the motorways of the sea and will be able to provide additional financial resources to eligible projects. Considerable efforts are currently being made to make short sea shipping a success. Nevertheless, we will have to redouble our efforts to achieve better results in the future.
That is why I would like to thank Parliament and the rapporteur for the work they have done. I am convinced that, together, we will continue to make sure that short sea shipping can grow. I am sure that it will bring a great deal to the whole freight transport policy, which remains an essential part of our great single European market."@en1
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