Newsletter – November 2025

An important milestone: the EU Military Mobility Package

Across Europe’s waterfronts, ports have always been places where history moves. They are the points where ships meet rail and road, where economies are supplied, and where, in times of crisis, the first and last movements of military equipment and personnel often take place. Long before today’s debates on resilience, European ports quietly underpinned military logistics, providing the practical capacity that allowed strategies to be turned into reality.

Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini, one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s most esteemed generals and a pioneering military theorist, was among the first to capture this truth with precision: “strategy determines where and how to act, while logistics ensures those plans can be carried out in practice”. That interdependence is exactly what the EU’s renewed focus on military mobility seeks to address and it is at the core of FEPORT’s engagement in this agenda.

Against this backdrop, FEPORT warmly welcomes the adoption of the EU Military Mobility Package and the new Military Mobility Regulation. The Regulation creates a coherent framework to strengthen Europe’s ability to move military assets quickly and reliably across borders by requiring Member States to prepare parts of the transport network for dual use, including the reinforcement and upgrading of port infrastructure, access routes and handling equipment along priority corridors. It calls for the identification of strategic nodes that must be kept operational under all circumstances, encourages the modernisation of facilities so they can safely accommodate abnormal and heavy transports, and promotes more structured planning and coordination with infrastructure managers and operators.

The Regulation looks at the entire transport chain, from roads and rail to airports, inland waterways and logistics platforms, and it explicitly recognises seaports and inland ports as critical nodes within this broader network.

For our sector, this formal recognition of ports and private terminal operators as indispensable enablers of military mobility is a significant achievement and reflects many of the priorities set out in FEPORT’s position paper. It confirms that private seaport terminals are not seen merely as commercial actors, but as trusted partners in the implementation of Europe’s defence and security objectives, whose operational knowledge and investments are essential for the success of dual use projects. The Regulation also responds to long standing calls from operators for clearer roles and responsibilities, improved coordination across borders and modes, and a more structured dialogue between civil and military stakeholders, including when it comes to planning, information sharing and customs facilitation. In this sense, it is not only a legal instrument but also a strong political signal that the contribution of the port sector to Europe’s security and resilience is recognised and valued.

The Military Mobility Package acknowledges that ports as a whole are not only gateways for trade, but also logistical enablers that allow the rapid movement of heavy equipment, abnormal loads and strategic cargo, including along, but not limited to, the four key priority corridors with 500 identified dual use hotspot projects needing urgent investments. It highlights the need to prepare and modernise port infrastructure, to ensure resilient connections with the hinterland and to integrate ports into coordinated planning and governance structures at national and EU level. This sends a strong signal to Member States, financial institutions and other stakeholders that investment in dual use port capacity is central to Europe’s security and readiness.

The financial dimension is equally important. The new CEF Transport envelope, including a dedicated Military Mobility allocation of 17.65 billion euro, represents a major step forward and confirms that the Union is ready to support dual use investments across all modes. These funds will be essential to unlock some of the most urgent projects and to address key bottlenecks in the network, including in ports. However, EU funding alone will not be sufficient to cover the full scale of investment needed to adapt quays, pavements, ramps, storage areas and digital systems to military specifications while maintaining smooth commercial operations.

FEPORT’s position paper has underlined that many of these adaptations bring limited direct commercial return, even though they are indispensable for defence and civil protection. Reinforcing quay walls to carry much heavier loads, creating secure zones that must remain available at short notice, upgrade of cargo handling equipment or integrating additional redundancy and cyber resilience are examples of costs that cannot be recovered through normal market mechanisms. This is why national support measures will remain essential, alongside EU funds, if dual use objectives are to be achieved in practice and such market failures addressed.

In this context, a dedicated EU State Aid Framework for Ports would not replace CEF, but would complement it. Such a framework would give Member States a clear and predictable channel to support dual use investments in port infrastructure and superstructure, within a common European legal architecture. It would help bridge the gap between what CEF can co finance and what still needs to be covered at national level, while avoiding fragmentation through uncoordinated schemes and preserving a level playing field between ports across the Union and still having a positive spillover effect into the efficiency of civilian purposed connectivity.

The Military Mobility Regulation is therefore both a policy success and a starting point. It confirms that ports and private terminal operators are recognised partners in Europe’s security and resilience efforts, not only as commercial actors but also as reliable providers of critical logistical capacity. It also reminds all stakeholders that this recognition must be accompanied by realistic investment conditions, adequate funding instruments and stable state aid rules if the ambitions on paper are to be matched by capabilities on the ground.

FEPORT and its members will remain closely engaged in the implementation of the Military Mobility Package, working with EU institutions and national authorities to ensure that ports can deliver on the role that the Regulation rightly assigns to them. By combining European funding, national support and the long-standing expertise of port and terminal operators, Europe can build the dual use infrastructure it needs, so that when strategy requires action, the logistical foundations are already in place.

• 04.12.2025 – Board of Directors Meeting  - Brussels
• 04.12.2025 – General Assembly – Brussels

European Parliament Plenary Session

• 15–18 December – Strasbourg

European Parliament ENVI Committee

• 11 December – Brussels

Council Meetings

• 04 December – Transport Council (Brussels)
• 16 December – Environment Council (Brussels)
• 18–19 December – European Council (Brussels)