Green light for new European trade corridor

Business leaders are responding positively to the EU initiative merging the Rhine-Alpine and the North Sea-Mediterranean corridors.

They describe it as a “long overdue” decision that could help to ease congestion across the continent’s barge, rail, and road infrastructure.

Due to commence early next year, the alignment of the routes into a single corridor will follow a plan expected to add 10 ports to the network, including Antwerp and Rotterdam, both having struggled with years of inland congestion.

One European rail operator told: “The EU initiative creating the corridor is long overdue. The good news is that it avoids the SNCF network, but let there be no misunderstanding, there are still plenty of challenges.

“Its success will all very much depend on the financing. If the financing is scattered and time-limited, it will become a ‘white elephant’. That means that it will develop as long as the money keeps coming. When the financing stops, the project will perish silently.”

Under the initiative, more than 12,150km of track will be linked into the corridor, which will stretch across seven countries – Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

Port of Antwerp-Bruges CEO Jacques Vandermeiren said efforts to relocate more cargo through the hinterlands via rail would also help to remove cargo from the continent’s road network, working towards its green pledge.

For its part, Belgium has been keen to bolster its railfreight volumes, with plans in place to increase the rail share through Antwerp to 15% by the start of the next decade, in contrast to the neighbouring Netherlands, which is experiencing declining volumes