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North Sea-Baltic Corridor

European Coordinator Ms Catherine Trautmann

Corridor meeting at the TEN-T Days 2015 Riga, 22 June 2015

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Presentation of the corridor work plan

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Corridor characteristics

● 8 Member States

● 17 urban nodes

● 16 airports

● 32 ports

● 17 RRT

● 8 border crossings

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Critical issues● Cross-border links: missing UIC standard gauge railway line from

Tallinn to the Polish border through the Baltic states

● Rail: freight traffic passing through urban nodes, port hinterland connections

● Interoperability: ERTMS in place on three cross-border sections only; differences in axle load and train length

● Ports and Motorways of the Sea: capacity issues in ports, hinterland connections

● Inland waterways: capacity issues concerning locks and bridges

● Road: bottlenecks especially in and around urban nodes; road safety, availability of alternative fuels

● Airport connections by road and by rail

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High investment needs

● 291 investments have been identified which would be needed for the development of the North Sea-Baltic Corridor until 2030

o 122 railways projects, o 67 road projects, o 82 port and inland waterways projects,o 20 airports projects.

● Estimated total volume of investments of around 133 billion EUR (at 2014 prices)

● Prioritisation of investments is of utmost importance and a competitive planning and financing framework needs to be set up

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Coordinator's role and work methods

● Meetings held with national Transport Ministers along the Corridor

● Inclusive approach involving relevant stakeholders through the meetings of the Corridor Forum and working groups, as well as through bilateral contacts

● Contacts with regional initiatives

● On-site visits

● Focus on innovation, ICT and ITS as well as logistics

● Contacts with MEPs taken on specific critical issues and to be developed further

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Focus on Rail Baltic

● One of the six biggest priority projects in the TEN-T with highest EU added value

● Joint Venture RB Rail AS set up in October 2014, fully responsible for coordination, implementation and facilitation of the project

● Intergovernmental Task Force meets on a regular basis

● Project completion foreseen in 2025 in the Baltic States

● Joint communication at the TEN-T Days in Riga

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Corridor priorities

● timely implementation of the missing cross-border link – the Rail Baltic project;

● the major bottleneck of the Amsterdam Sea Lock;

● the hinterland connection of the main ports – by rail, road and inland waterways;

● the interoperability of the railway network in close cooperation with the "North Sea – Baltic" Rail Freight Corridor;

● Coordinated deployment of ERTMS in line with its European added value

● the importance of the main urban nodes, particularly the multi-corridor nodes.

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Presentation of the corridor process and

its next steps

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What happened so far?● 4 Corridor Forum meetings held in Brussels in 2014 with gradual

involvement of Member States, infrastructure managers of all corridor transport modes (rail, road, ports, airports) and Regions

● 2 Working Group sessions (Ports / Regions)

● Final corridor study with detailed analysis of corridor presented in December 2014

● Corridor work plan, based on results of corridor study, elaborated by European Coordinator and presented to Member States on 22 December 2014 for their approval

● May 2015: Approval of corridor work plan by all Member States concerned

● 16 June 2015: Hearing in the European Parliament

● Today: presentation of the work plan to the wider public

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What happens next?

Further development of the corridor study

●Selection of consultant for further development of the corridor study and support to the European Coordinator currently ongoing

●Aim: to deepen and consolidate the analysis of 2014

● Update and deepening of the project list for all modes with the aim to prioritize investments (detailed description of individual projects and their timing and costs; analysis of projects' feasibility and maturity; identification of their added value for the corridor; …)

● Enhancing coherence between the core network corridors and horizontal priorities ERTMS and MoS; consolidating the exchange with the RFC

● Covering issues that were only marginally touched upon so far, notably innovation, ITS, sustainability and interoperability

● Dealing with economic, social and environmental impacts, noise, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change

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What happens next?

Continuation of the corridor process / Revision of the corridor work plan

●5th Corridor Forum: Tuesday 29 September 2015, Brussels – inception report by the consultant on methodology to improve the corridor study

●6th Corridor Forum: Tuesday 8 December 2015, Brussels – presentation of first progress report of the consultant

●7th Corridor Forum: March 2016 – intermediate report on further development of the project list

●Two further Corridor Forum meetings in 2016 in view of first update of the corridor work plan – process to continue in 2017 and 2018

●Working group sessions on specific items still to be decided (Ports, Regions, cross-border issues…)

●June 2016: Update of corridor work plan

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Thank you for your attention