Maritime transport

Bottlenecks Identification

The Directorate-General for Energy and Transport in the European Commission initiated, in December 1999, a European-wide exercise to identify concrete bottlenecks that hamper the development of door-to-door Short Sea Shipping and also to identify potential solutions to them. The exercise was carried out in co-operation with the Short Sea Shipping Focal Points (who are representatives of national maritime administrations) and the industry, the ultimate aim being the identification of bottlenecks that could be rectified. 

Information on bottlenecks was received from the Focal Points and other interested parties, and an inventory was compiled on the basis of this information. This inventory of bottlenecks offered, for the first time, a list of 161 identified obstacles that should be tackled at different levels (commercial, local, regional, State and/or Community levels). Since the launch of this initiative, the European Commission, the Focal Points, the Shortsea Promotion Centres and industry have worked to find solutions for the greatest number of bottlenecks possible.  The initial list of 161 bottlenecks has now been reduced to 39 (this includes new bottlenecks which have been added as a result of the re-launch of the exercise in 2005).   Details of all current bottlenecks are presented in the files below:

Summary Table of Bottlenecks
Image of Short Sea Shipping  
Door-to-Door issues, including Costs/Price concerns
Administrative and Documentary Procedures 
Ports
Country-Specific Obstacles

Real progress has been made (as illustrated in the  2006 Mid Term Review of the Programme for Promotion of Short Sea Shipping ). However, all actors in the intermodal chain are requested to continue to study the files and together with the Commission, Member States and industry, to endeavour to eliminate the remaining bottlenecks.

With this in mind, the Directorate General for Energy and Transport in the European Commission has re-launched the bottleneck exercise, in co-operation with the Short Sea Shipping Focal Points and the industry. This initiative has been undertaken in order to ensure that all existing problems, hindering the development of Short Sea Shipping, are brought into the public arena, enabling solutions to be sought through the appropriate means.

NOTE TO SHORT SEA SHIPPING FOCAL POINTS AND OTHER INTERESTED PARTIES

The exercise is on-going and new bottlenecks can be added at any time.  Therefore, if you are aware of any bottlenecks that have not been reported you can submit them at any time to the European Commission(e-mail: sss@ec.europa.eu )