11.3.2022
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 117/9 Tuesday 14 September 2021
G. whereas the Commission’s white paper on transport published as long ago as 2011 highlighted the fact that the modal share of inland waterways in Europe needs to be increased and whereas insufficient progress has been achieved since then; H. whereas there is strong consensus in the inland waterway transport sector that greening is key to ensure the sector’s long-term competitiveness and enable it to play a significant, reliable and credible role in the multimodal shift; whereas a broad reflection on how to finance this green transition is ongoing in the sector; whereas the time has come for more concrete measures, tools and means to help put this ambition into practice; I. whereas insufficient infrastructure investments have led to a backlog; whereas qualitative infrastructure is the basis and backbone of a successful inland waterway sector; whereas increasing capacity has its limits and focus should equally be on increasing performance and ensuring reliability of the sector at all times; J. whereas a substantial share of EU inland waterway freight is seaport related; whereas both sea and inland ports play an important role as multimodal hubs, providing connections with other modes of transport that can also take over freight loads; whereas it is therefore important and required by the TEN-T guidelines that sea and inland ports should be well connected with one another and have good connections with the hinterland; notes that inland ports should become energy hubs for sustainable alternative fuels; K. whereas drought and climate change are two of the major problems facing European inland waterway transport; whereas in several European regions, inland waterway transport was hit hard by the long period of drought in 2018 owing to extremely low water levels; whereas the consequences were devastating for the Rhine and its tributaries, the Upper and Middle Danube and the Upper and Middle Elbe; whereas in Germany this led to a decline of EUR 5 billion in industrial production; whereas, moreover, inland water areas in Northern Europe tend to be frozen during the severest winter months, which disrupts traffic; L. whereas the modal shift from road to inland waterways not only concerns freight but also passenger transport, notably in urban areas; whereas as 50 % of the EU population lives close to the sea and along rivers, inland waterway passenger transport offers an environmentally friendly alternative in terms of both energy consumption and noise emissions; whereas it also helps to decongest overloaded road networks and provides an alternative to the expansion of road infrastructure in densely populated areas; M. whereas river cruises, ferries, day trip vessels, water taxis and water shuttles play an important role in European tourism and should become a cleaner option for tourism and public transport in regions and cities with accessible and navigable rivers, canals and lakes, which would also make urban mobility more sustainable and effective; whereas the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy should take this into account; N. whereas together with rail, inland waterway freight transport will play a crucial role in attaining the objectives of the Green Deal in terms of the modal shift in freight transport; whereas the two modes in supply chains should be mainstreamed and made more accessible; O. whereas inland waterway transport could play an important role for maritime transport in terms of enhancing digitalisation and creating scale regarding zero-emission propulsion solutions, such as electrification and hydrogen; P. whereas the procedures to obtain a certificate for a hydrogen vessel are still very lengthy; whereas for a series of hydrogen vessels with exactly the same technical characteristics, separate applications have to be submitted for every single vessel; whereas this kind of administrative burden discourages private investment and thus stymies technological progress and cost efficiency improvements; Q. whereas the energy transition is also a challenge for the inland navigation sector despite inland waterways being one of the most environmentally friendly modes of transport; whereas it is important to take account of the role of contractors in the entire supply chain in order to improve the business case for sustainable investments in the inland waterway transport sector; R. whereas the inland waterway fleet needs to be modernised and adapted to reflect technical progress in order to further improve vessels’ environmental performance; whereas zero-emission technologies are not yet viable at scale in the inland waterway transport sector due to poor technical maturity, a lack of infrastructure and uncompetitive prices;