Brussels, 08/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has given fresh impetus to maritime transport by adopting, by written procedure, a communication for promoting short haul maritime transport and a proposal of directive on containers and intermodal loading units). The communication establishes a programme aimed at promoting short distance maritime transport within the EU, consisting of 14 distinct activities: - legislative (implementation of the Marco Polo programme), technical (list of obstacles to progress in this kind of transport) and operational activities (collection of statistical data).
The proposal of directive aims at: (1) harmonising the interoperable characteristics of the new mobile units in order to make them easily transferable from one kind of transport to another (rail, road, maritime transport); (2) submitting them to compulsory maintenance and regular inspections; (3) defining the criteria of optimal inter-modal loading units combining the advantages of containers (solidity) and mobile boxes (capacity).