Euroinstitut - Autonomous Port of Strasbourg, FR

The Advice Case “Cross border rail connectivity for the Port of Strasbourg” submitted by the Autonomous Port of Strasbourg (DE-FR) received consultancy by the Euroinstitut, contracted in the framework of the initiative b-solutions. The Port is currently facing various obstacles of legal nature which prevent its full operability, with specific regard to its freight train station. Upon a field analysis, the Euroinstitut detected the origin of the hurdles and proposed possible solutions.

Obstacles are due to:

• diverging laws at the national level in Germany and France, which have an impact on the recognition of national safety certificates, on the language’s and training’s requirements for workers operating in the structure, and on trains technical requirements.

The following solutions are proposed:

• a wider interpretation of the “border section” in the transposition of Directive (UE) 2016/797 and Directive (UE) 2016/798 in France, in order to include the Port and facilitate the recognition of national safety certificates;
• the integration of the rail freight and into future French-German cross-border agreements.

More detailed information is included in the expert full report, which can be downloaded here.

The information here provided have been developed in the framework of b-solutions, an initiative of the European Comission’s DG REGIO managed by the Association of the European Border Regions (AEBR).

The reports here included are the result of a consultation provided by legal/cross-border cooperation experts on obstacles of a legal or administrative nature– referred to as Advice Cases - selected in the framework of the II Call for Porposal of the initiative b-solutions.