EBU’S REACTION ON THE WHITE PAPER AND A FOLLOW-UP TO THE NAIADES ACTION PROGRAMME
EBU WELCOMES THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S WHITE PAPER THAT RECOGNISED THE IMPORTANCE AND POTENTIAL OF IWT.

Inland Waterway Transport (IWT) indeed plays an important role for the transport of goods and passengers in Europe. It pays an important contribution to the transport demands within the European policy.
As a matter of fact the environmental and social challenges as expressed in the White Paper can be much better addressed by making full use t of inland waterway transport. The prioritisation and rebalance of cargo flows must lead to a better use of the existing resources in a more efficient and effective way.
IWT serves huge industries and offers a huge potential for modal shift, certainly not restricted to long distances over 300 km! It is able to support the visions of the White Paper for a competitive and sustainable transport system and realising the goals for a competitive and resource efficient transport system by

• combining growth of transport on the untapped potential of the European waterways and reaching the 60 % emission reduction target
• taking over volumes from the congested roads which benefits the entire European society and economy
• increasing its share not only for long but also on short distances such as in congested city and port areas
• deploying new and sustainable fuels and propulsion systems
• optimising the performance of the logistic chain through the development of multimodal nodes and a better integration of inland waterway transport

FOLLOW UP TO THE NAIADES PROGRAMME
In the White Paper the Commission recognises that NAIADES has created a momentum for a common European policy. EBU welcomes that the Commission will ensure the continuity of the implementation measures and intends to follow up the existing programme which is regarded as the appropriate framework to cope with the future development of Inland Waterway Transport within the realisation of a sustainable transport policy. The further integration of IWT into the logistic chain requires a number of specific measures that are needed under a follow up programme for which appropriate financial support must be foreseen.
A significantly higher share of inland waterway transport supports the European Union to cope with its future mobility.
For this reason EBU contributed to the recent discussions under the Hungarian and Polish presidency which called upon the Commission to come up with a NAIADES follow up programme before the end of this year and delivered its input to the consultation launched by the European Commission.
The full text is available on the www.ebu-uenf.org website.