EFIP's Views

Position papers

Here you will find an overview of the positions papers and responses EFIP has given to European policy initiatives and the contributions of EFIP to stakeholders consultations.

Common position paper of the European Port Sector Organisations on the review of the Seveso II Directive

In 2009 the Commission announced a review of the Seveso II Directive 96/82/EC. The Directive would have to be amended due to changes to the EU system of classification of hazardous substances to which the Directive refers.

The European Port Sector Organisations: ESPO, FEPORT and EFIP adopted a common position paper on the review of the Seveso II Directive

The European port sector organisations strongly advice that the current scope of the Seveso II Directive remains unchanged for ports as transport links. An inclusion of ports within the scope of the Directive will only have administrational, operational, and financial implications to the port sector without having any real positive impact on enhancing safety and on reducing accidents.

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EFIP’s response to the Commission’s Action Plan on Urban mobility

On 30 September 2009, the European Commission adopted an Action Plan on Urban Mobility. The Action Plan proposes twenty concrete measures to help local, regional and national authorities achieve their goals for sustainable urban mobility. The Action Plan is a follow-up to the Green Paper on Urban Mobility that was adopted on 25 September 2007.

EFIP welcomes the Commission initiative to develop an Action Plan on Urban Mobility. Indeed, even if local authorities are best placed to define and implement urban mobility policies it is clear that urban transport systems are an integral element of the European transport system. Urban mobility is indeed a central component of long distance transport since most of the transport starts, passes through or ends in an urban area. Urban transport is as such a vital element of a competitive and sustainable transport system. In this context, the European Federation of Inland Ports (EFIP) is identifying three priorities:

Inland ports offer efficient interconnection points for the trans-European transport network in urban areas.
Urban areas: Restore the balance between logistic and housing needs
Internalisation of external costs of transport in urban areas: waste transport as a pilot project

EFIP’s response to the Communication "A Sustainable Future for Transport"

On 24 June 2009, the European Commission published the Communication “A sustainable future for transport: Towards an integrated, technology-led and user friendly system”. With this document the European Commission is starting the debate in view of the next Transport White Paper of 2010.
The Communication sets out a vision for the future of transport and mobility until 2020, taking into consideration scenario’s that may occur decades beyond this date. All interested parties are encouraged to contribute to the consultation exercise and give their view on the future of transport and on possible policy options. EFIP participated in this consultation.

EFIP believes that sustainability and efficiency should characterize the Transport system of and for the Future. To achieve this goal EFIP considers the removal of all obstacles to a better integration of the different transport modes (infrastructure, legislative, administrative, operational, and technological) as an absolute priority for the European transport policy. EFIP strongly believes that an efficient and sustainable transport system can not be based on a one-mode policy but should be based on a successful combination of inland waterway, rail, road and maritime transport. Depending on the type of freight, the geographical situation, the distance, one combination of modes can prove to be more attractive than another combination. It is of vital importance that transport users can make a sustainable and efficient choice of transport modes and co-modal solutions and that the shift of goods from one transport mode to another can happen in an efficient way. Inland ports have a big potential in making the intermodal transport and supply chain feasible in practice.

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EFIP’s views on the Commission’s Green paper on the TEN-T review

EFIP welcomes the opportunity given by the European Commission to reflect on the review of the TEN-T guidelines and to see in particular how the European TEN-T policy can be improved and address the challenges the European transport system is facing as a consequence of the congestion and environmental problems.

EFIP strongly believes that it is time to use the potential that inland ports have to optimize the co-modal transport chain and to contribute to a sustainable transport logistic chain.
So far, the TEN-T “network” was above all conceived as set of TEN-T projects with a starting point and an end point. Too little attention was made to the starting and endpoint itself, to the connection between the TEN-T projects and the interconnection between the projects and the existing infrastructure. The European Commission has very rightly recognized the need to fill in this gap in order to realize a real “network”. EFIP and its members encourage the Commission to follow this path further and to look with all other stakeholders how the optimizing of the “network” aspect of the TEN-T can be developed taking in to account the environmental and congestion problems the European transport policy is facing and bearing in mind the difficult economic and financial situation Europe is living in at the moment. EFIP believes option 3 - even if it looks like the most ambitious option - is the best way to go forward with the revision of the TEN-T guidelines. EFIP supports the dual layer consisting of a “core network” and a comprehensive network.