Transport policy is one of the European Commission’s core policy areas aimed at enabling a smooth and sustainable movement of persons and goods. The major cornerstones of European transport policy include:

• the White Paper on Transport – objectives regarding mobility in Europe
• the TEN-T Guidelines – priority infrastructure projects on road, rail and waterways to establish a trans-European transport network

The European navigation policy as an integral part of transport policy is set out by the European Commission’s Action Programme NAIADES. It was published in 2006 and aims at promoting inland waterway transport in Europe. Numerous reasons support the increased use of inland waterway transport: little energy consumption, low CO2 emissions, low external costs, free capacities and low transport costs.

NAIADES is an important step towards fully exploiting the market potential of inland waterway transport. As an integrated programme it combines legislative, coordination and support measures and focuses on five strategic areas: markets, fleet, personnel, image and infrastructure. The NAIADES Action Programme provides the Member Countries, but also the EU itself, with guidelines for a concerted effort to strengthen navigation.

The implementation of NAIADES is supported by the PLATINA platform, which is coordinated by via donau.

Downloads:

• NAIADES – An Integrated European Action Programme for Inland Waterway Transport (2006 | English | PDF | 300 KB)