Monaco, 10/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - At the opening of the Euromed-Transport Conference, which was jointly organised by the EIB and the government of Monaco on Friday 10 November, the Vice-President of the European Commission with responsibility for Transport, Jacques Barrot, announced the "forthcoming adoption by the Council of the communication on the extension of the broad trans-European axes towards Mediterranean countries" and neighbouring countries in general.
The conference, which met in Monaco, was attended by the Transport Ministers from the countries of the southern shore of Mediterranean, representatives of public services and private bodies, and the transport and financial sectors. With this conference, the EIB intends to mobilise sources of private funding to support monies pledged under the FEMIP (Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership), which it manages on behalf of the EU.
Cooperation within the various fields of transport has an "undeniable plus-value", said Mr Barrot. This value is an "evident and absolute necessity". Today, he stressed, "500 million tonnes of goods pass through Mediterranean ports every year and trade in goods between the two shores of the Mediterranean is in the region of 200 million tonnes a year, three quarters of which go via the sea". The EU represents nearly two thirds of the trade of its partner countries, but "intra-regional trade with the South represents just 5%". We must, Mr Barrot continued, work towards a "rebalancing of transport flows in favour of the Mediterranean and the development of new hubs in the Mediterranean, which can exploit a maritime traffic with high growth potential" via the Suez Canal which, according to an expert present, will be in even greater demand in line with the development of the Chinese market. Close attention must be paid to promoting common requirements in regulatory and logistic terms, Mr Barrot added, whilst laying emphasis on the need to bring in "identical quality standards" in services on either side of the Mediterranean and joint safety measures, particularly environmental ones. With this in sight, and given the requirement to achieve "interoperability", public and private funding must be mobilised. "The achievement of the Euromed transport network requires a strong political commitment", he concluded. (fb)