Borders Forum 2024

Picture by MOT / Emilie Gomez

Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière (MOT) organised The Borders Forum 2024 at the Cité Internationale Universitaire in Paris. It took place on 2 and 3 December with over 300 participants from border regions across the European Union. The event was held under the high patronage of French President Emmanuel Macron.

The forum presented the “Cross-Border Deal” to national and European decisionmakers to encourage public policies that consider cross-border areas and resolve border obstacles that affect nearly 30% of Europeans.

Dr. Cecilia Braun represented the Interregional Alliance in Session #2 “No deal without solidarity. But are we ready to share our sovereignty across borders?” Dr. Braun emphasised the need for enhanced cross-border cooperation. She highlighted the significant overlap between the Alliance’s key focus areas and the forum’s objectives, including sustainable transport and mobility, digital connectivity, and smart infrastructure solutions, as well as environmental protection, economic development, and innovation in border regions. Dr. Braun stressed the importance of the Alliance’s bottom-up approach in addressing these challenges and the value of collaboration between local, regional, and national authorities. She also underlined the potential for shared sovereignty in specific areas to facilitate more efficient cross-border solutions, particularly in transport infrastructure and environmental management along the corridor.

The Interregional Alliance’s participation in this high-level forum reinforces its commitment to fostering cross-border cooperation and its role as a key player in shaping the future of European border regions.

Additional information and pictures of the event can be found here. 

Solutions for sustainable transalpine transport: Tackling Brenner bottlenecks

Picture by Copilot

The Scandria Alliance held the webinar “Solutions for sustainable transalpine transport: Tackling Brenner bottlenecks” on December 16th. The upcoming opening of the Brenner Base Tunnel presents a promising opportunity to significantly increase rail capacity and thus enable modal shift. However, challenges such as motorway renovations could potentially disrupt traffic flow in the short term.

• Current situation in transalpine freight transport across the Brenner
  Antonello Fontanili, Director, Uniontrasporti Scarl
• Capacity management as instrument for aligning Alpine transit policies: proposals for the Brenner corridor and beyond
  Helen Lückge, Head of the iMONITRAF! Coordination Point, Climonomics
• A private perspective on bottlenecks capacity and potential innovative solutions
  Andrea Condotta, Director Public Affairs, Innovation & Sustainability, Gruber Logistics

Antonello Fontanili, Director of Uniontrasporti, a member of the Interregional Alliance for the Rhine-Alpine Corridor, presented insights on the status quo of transalpine freight transport at the recent Scandria Alliance Talk. Key points from his presentation included Italy’s growing export sector, now ranking 6th globally, with 2/3 of exports destined for the EU as well as the critical role of the Brenner axis in transalpine freight transport, handling 39 million tonnes annually via road and 13 million tonnes by . He covered the current modal split consisting of 75% road and 25% rail transport and major challenges, including Tyrol’s traffic restrictions and future Lueg bridge maintenance. He also covered an economic impact study, which revealed that the operational problems are expected to have a total economic impact of €1.8 billion over 5 years.
Some proposed solutions included dynamic speed limits, toll differentiation, increased RoLa capacity, and improved intermodal infrastructure for the Brenner Base Tunnel.

Director Fontanili’s presentation underscored the urgent need for sustainable solutions to address the growing pressures on this transport corridor.

Source (includes presentations):

Scandria-Alliance.eu 

INE: “Why Inland Water Transport is indispensable for Europe”

Picture by Bing image creator

The recent report by Inland Navigation Europe (INE) “Why Inland Water Transport is indispensable for Europe” highlights the role of inland waterways in shaping a sustainable and resilient European transport network.

A short overview of the report:

According to the report, inland shipping is the backbone of EU clean industry and sustainable tourism,  efficiently connecting major production centers, seaports, and cities across the continent. During the COVID-19 pandemic, inland waterways demonstrated their resilience by ensuring the smooth transportation of essential goods.

However, the sector faces challenges, including insufficient investments and climate change impacts on water levels.The report emphasises the need for modern, efficient inland ports and EU co-funding to complete the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). It calls for a network approach to address bottlenecks and reduce administrative barriers, ensuring the full potential of inland water transport in creating a more sustainable and competitive European economy.

INE emphasises that a predictable and stable long-term EU budget for infrastructure is crucial to the removal of bottlenecks affecting cross-border connectivity.

Sources: 

Inlandnavigation.eu 

INE’s report