“The problem of Genoa is the rear port in Northern Europe are more organized”
A cleaner mobility, a way to transport goods that is respectful of the ambitious European objectives in terms of reducing harmful emissions into the atmosphere. Cecilia Braun is the director of the European group of territorial cooperation of the Rhine-Alps corridor, what in Italy, for convenience, is called Genoa Rotterdam. Braun intervened on April 21 at the general states of the logistics of Alexandria.
yesMrs Braun, on the North-South European axis there is a strong imbalance between the quantity of goods coming down from the ports of the north to the south of Europe and those coming up from the ports of the south. For what reasons?
“It is an imbalance that today concerns the quantity of ships arriving at the northern ports compared to those arriving in the south, in Genoa, for example. But it is an imbalance that goes hand in hand with what concerns the structures and investments in port areas. In a word, today the port areas of northern Europe are more organized ».
In your opinion, what is the reason for the reduced activity in the ports of Southern Europe?
«I believe that the difficulty to be overcome is that of handling the goods once they arrive in port. This is the greatest criticality concerning, for example, the backports area, as in Liguria. These delays must be overcome quickly. We will have to work in the next few years for a balance that gives new impetus to the ports of Southern Europe and that makes it possible to find the right corridors also towards South-North ».
The Genoa-Rotterdam corridor is parallel, in a North-South direction, to the Marseille-Paris corridor which passes through Lyon. When will it be possible to combine them with the horizontal axis by completing the Lisbon-Kiev route with the Turin-Lyon high-speed section?
«Europe is set as an objective to complete all the Ten-te networks in the program. Each has its own times of realization. In short times all the sections will be completed and the whole system will work in synchrony. The result will come because it will be the network that will guarantee us a significant reduction in emissions related to the transport of goods. For this reason the Novara node, at the intersection of the two corridors, is of strategic importance and for this reason we will have to pay particular attention to that intersection ».
How to imagine the future of freight transport in the Old Continent?
“It will have to be a greener future. I am thinking of the modal shift from iron to rubber and the use of hydrogen as a propellant to further reduce pollution. It is in these new forms of mobility that we will have to invest. And this is why we must continuously increase the emissions generated by our goods transfer corridors in order to achieve the objectives of Europe 2050 ».
While Europe is transforming its footprint on the planet, trying to improve it, on the eastern border the invasion of Ukraine seems to call into question the entire network of trade. What consequences will the war have on European logistics?
«The first consequence, and perhaps the most immediate today, is uncertainty. Logistics is planning and war tends to question all planning. The second is the difficulty of connecting areas of the world. Commercial traffic between Europe and China, already troubled by the pandemic, has suffered a new blow. But we don’t have to assess the situation based on today’s data. We all hope that the war will end, but in the medium term the transport of goods on European corridors is destined to increase significantly. Also thanks to the resumption of trade with China. When that recovery occurs, Europe will have to present itself equipped to welcome it in the best possible way and with the lowest possible environmental impact ».