BRUSSELS, Oct 18: The European Commission announced on Thursday a vast action plan to ease international freight traffic in Europe, by opening up priority rail corridors and cutting red tape for ships moving between EU ports.

Experts predict that freight transport will increase by half in Europe by 2020 compared to 2000 levels, and Brussels has decided to take steps to streamline procedures so that the EU economy can better take advantage.

“Europe must place itself at the cutting edge of the logistical chain,” EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot told reporters in Brussels.

The idea is to create international maritime and rail transport corridors dedicated to freight and cargo traffic, and see containers of harmonised sizes loaded smoothly, whether it is onto ships, trains or trucks.

The commission hopes the measures, numbering around 30, would promote innovative technologies and practices, improve freight management, ease the building of freight transport chains and simplify administrative procedures.

For the sea, the EU’s executive body wants to present a proposal for legislation in 2008 creating a “European Maritime Transport Space without Barriers”.

It would cut down on the complex and time-consuming procedures -- document, health, veterinary, customs and physical checks -- facing vessels that move between ports in two of the 27 EU nations.

The EU has some 1,200 ports along its estimated 100,000 km (62,000 miles) of coastline, and these ports are all considered to be lying on the bloc’s external border, meaning tougher checks are needed.

“Until now, we didn’t have the means of ensuring that any boat in transit did not have contact with other ships from non-European countries, or if it had stopped at a port outside the EU,” Barrot said.

“Today, with satellite positioning equipment, it’s easier to follow them so there is no real reason to force them to undergo the same customs controls twice,” he said.

In the rail sector, which needs development to keep apace with the growing use of road transport, the commission wants to create a European freight-oriented network to improve transit times, reliability and capacity.

At the moment, Barrot said, “a freight train will always have to give priority to any other kind of train”.

Brussels expects each EU member nation to develop by 2012 at least one international rail corridor dedicated to freight traffic. —AFP