THREE LENSES TO READ THE NEW EUROPEAN STRATEGIES ON SHIPPING, SHIPBUILDING AND PORTS (AND A SHORT EIB COMMERCIAL)

Europe has marked its ambition regarding shipping, shipbuilding and ports in two recently published strategies: the Ports Strategy and the Industrial Maritime Strategy.

This ambition spans across a wide set of objectives: from competitiveness to innovation, from economic security to decarbonisation, from resilience to security and defence. In some cases, such as climate resilience and security and defence, the alignment is obvious, in other cases, such as shipping decarbonisation and its competitiveness, less so. This means that the strategies can be seen through very different lenses. Something certainly reflected by the reactions of the stakeholders.

Allow me to choose (my) three lenses to read them: (i) investment needs, (ii) security and defence, and (iii) beyond transport.

Investment needs

The materialisation of investments is a very good proxy to measure the success of the strategies.

The investments needed to achieve the European ambition are huge. They include port expansions and connectivity upgrades, shipbuilding and naval industry, acquisition and modernisation of vessels, and supporting infrastructure for offshore wind energy.

Competitiveness is key. The private sector will be behind the vast majority of these investments. And to have the investment capacity, the private companies need to generate profits: more income, less costs.

That is why the strategies put so much emphasis on simplification, notably regarding environmental permitting. Stronger consultation and public information requirements were designed to limit the development of polluting industries and large infrastructure projects with heavy impacts to the ecosystems.

However, they are now slowing down the investments needed to achieve the environmental and climate goals: from investments in electric grids, to urban mobility, to clean industries. Just an example: the approval of a sustainable urban mobility plan can require the submission of more than 15 reports from different entities: culture, finance, environment, climate, planning, etc. Halving this amount would produce huge efficiency gains and reduce significantly the planning phase, allowing to move quicker to implementation.

Promoting competitiveness and simplification is not optional – but a precondition for the investments to materialise on the ground to match the European ambition.

Security, defence and strategic autonomy

In a stark change from the past, security, defence and strategic autonomy are driving forces behind the European ambition.

Just a few years ago, the European Commission’s Sustainable Mobility Strategy barely mentioned them. Security appeared mainly in the context of transport safety and cybersecurity. Defence was mentioned once, in “trade defence”. Military was not even mentioned. The Sustainable Mobility Strategy had been developed under the positive agenda of the Green Deal.

The contrast with the new strategies is striking. The Ports Strategy alone mentions military 16 times, defence 6 times, and security 84 times. And there is a lot of substance behind these numbers: measures range from preventing smuggling and human and drug trafficking to enabling military mobility through ports, from strengthening the naval industry to protecting undersea assets, and from increasing counter-drone capacities to assessing potential risks related to the foreign ownership of strategic assets.

The urgency is not hard to understand. As I write this, the Financial Times reports that:

The European Maritime Space is no longer just an economic domain, but a strategic one.

Beyond transport: energy hubs, industry anchor, and security assets

Ports are no longer seen as just transport infrastructures but are tasked with supporting the energy transition (offshore wind energy, sustainable maritime fuels) and anchoring the European reindustrialisation, including shipbuilding and naval industries.

As a result, port planning can no longer be solely focused on the transport component. Their development needs to be rethought as critical infrastructures playing key roles as energy hubs, anchors for industrial development, and security assets.

The European Investment Bank: Financing and Advisory

The European Investment Bank Group is mentioned several times in both strategies, showcasing its importance both from the lending and advisory perspective.

The EIB plays a key role as financier to the wider maritime sector, with an average of EUR 600 M per year, focused on port infrastructure development. Recent operations include the ports of Genoa (EUR 300M), Málaga (EUR 50M), Gothenburg (EUR 77M) and Livorno (EUR 90 M).

As a promotional bank, through EIB Advisory, we can support you when developing investments, from strategic planning to addressing specific barriers for investments, aiming at shaping projects to ensure their bankability.

The Ports Strategy announces a new advisory assignment. Through this new assignment, designed together with the European Commission, EIB Advisory will implement a capacity building programme for small- and medium‑sized ports.