The 2025 High-level Freight Meeting held in Copenhagen on the 19th and 20th of November (kindly hosted by DB Cargo) gathered a great line up of speakers from different organisations and institutions (NATO, EU Commission) and companies as well as representatives from the Danish Ministries and the Danish Presidency of the Council. It has been a privileged moment of open and constructive discussions between panellists who had the opportunity to comment and provide insights regarding the potential of rail freight in the context of the adoption of important documents such as the White paper for European defence – Readiness 2030 and the Military Mobility Package but also the withdrawal of the Combined Transport Directive.
FEPORT Secretary General, Ms Lamia Kerdjoudj was among the panellists, and she was invited to provide the views of private port companies and terminals performing cargo handling and logistics related activities in the European ports.
Ms Kerdjoudj reminded the attendees that COVID has already acted as an eye opener on topics such as strategic autonomy, security of supplies and the strategic role of supply chains including all their components. The war in Ukraine has pushed further our awareness raising process by revealing the “energy topic” and imposed a strong test on the resilience of the TEN-T network and the need for mobility beyond the needs for trade.
“We are therefore living an extraordinary moment which compels us to be both lucid and confident in our capacity to unleash the potential of our strengths and implement real solutions to overcome our weaknesses. When it comes to transport, all modes play their role, and it is more than urgent to bet on the capabilities of all of them and stop playing one against the other one. Rail has a major role to play particularly for massified shipments. Ports need to be connected to efficient and reliable rail freight services. We need reliable maritime, road, rail, inland waterways, combined transport etc… otherwise ports suffocate with congestion. And we cannot afford this neither in peace nor (not to say even less) crisis times” mentioned FEPORT Secretary General.
“The withdrawal of the Combined Transport Directive is not a positive signal that will even more delay the positive results that we could have expected thanks to more harmonised approaches. What is at stake is not only the resilience of the EU logistics chains but their competitiveness as the EU is never as strong as when it is economically robust. Our enemies and competitors perfectly know it” added Ms Kerdjoudj.
Finally with respect to the expectations regarding the EU Port Strategy, FEPORT Secretary General underlined that “an EU ports Strategy that will be only defensive will not solve the problem of competitiveness of the EU ports. Time for a State Aid Framework for Ports has therefore come” she concluded.
