The European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO) highly welcomes the fact that the Transport Committee in the European Parliament adopted the own-initiative report, building a comprehensive European Port Strategy.
As per their statement, ESPO welcomes that the report embraces the comprehensive role of Europe’s ports and the vital role that ports play for Europe’s society and economy. According to ESPO, not only as the European Union’s gateways to the world, logistic nodes and industrial clusters, but also as hubs of energy and facilitators of military mobility, Europe’s ports are enablers of the European Union’s important transitions and ambitions.
To be able to play this role, constantly develop and remain competitive, including vis-à-vis ports outside Europe, European ports require large amounts of public and private investments. As such, ESPO highly appreciates that the report recognises these investment needs and underlines the importance of a more stable investment climate and predictability in investment assessments.
ESPO further welcomes the European Union to further harmonize the measures to strengthen the resilience and protection of Europe’s critical infrastructures, including ports. The forthcoming review of the Foreign Direct Investment Regulation must oblige all EU Member States to implement a foreign direct investment screening system and carry out screenings in a more harmonised manner. This not only fosters the necessary level playing field within Europe, but also contributes to more legal certainty for potential investors aiming to invest in European ports.
We would like to congratulate the rapporteur and shadow rapporteurs for their work on this report. It gathers a lot of important messages which clearly explains the comprehensive and increasingly important and strategic role of ports.
… said Isabelle Ryckbost, ESPO Secretary General
Ports in Europe have been working with many new (European) legislative initiatives, specifically since 2017. Ranging from the Port Services Regulation and the revised General Block Exemption Regulation, to the Foreign Direct Investment Regulation, the Distortive Foreign Subsidies Regulation, the Network and Information Security Directive, the Critical Entities Regulation and the relevant pillars of the Fit for 55 Package. It is now important to see that these rules are being adequately implemented, and properly assessed before launching reviews and taking additional measures, ESPO concludes.
