Brussels, Belgium (Ports Europe) April 8, 2024 – Representatives from Georgia and Ukraine joined the European Union’s Connecting Europe Days 2024 event in Brussels last week.
The Connecting Europe Days 2024 event took place April 2-5, 2024, and is the organisation’s mobility flagship event. It brings together more than 2,500 participants from all EU Member States and neighbouring third countries, in particular Switzerland, Norway, the Western Balkans partners as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Georgia and Türkiye.
Participants include ministers, politicians, financial institutions, industry representatives, transport stakeholders and the European Commission and related agencies.
Georgia
Georgian Deputy Economy Minister Genadi Arveladze attended the event. His country is part of the trans-European transport network, and the deputy minister was present to promote transport links with the EU.
One issue is Black Sea connections. Georgia would like to see more cargo traffic directed to its ports of Poti and Batumi. It would also gauge EU interest in being involved with a future deep sea port in Anaklia. This future port is rife with economic and political issues. Commercially, the EU would like to see trade develop along the Middle Corridor, which passes through Georgia.
However, the Georgian government has an opaque relationship with Russia, which still occupies a piece of land in northern Georgia. There has even been talk of Moscow building a naval base in occupied Abkharzia.
Ukraine
Deputy Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development Serhiy Derkach took part in high-level events during the Connecting Europe Days week in Brussels, dedicated to the development of transport and logistics routes in Europe.
He said: “Ukraine’s integration into the European Union is taking place, among other things, through the expansion of Ukrainian routes in the TEN-T network. We are working on the next step – the inclusion of routes leading to the Danube in the transport network. This is extremely important given the development of the Danube Cluster and the need to increase logistics capabilities.
In addition, it gives us access to some of the EU’s instruments for financing transport projects on a par with other countries included in the TEN-T network”.
He also highlighted the importance of extending the Agreement on Liberalisation of Freight Transport between Ukraine and the EU. The European Commission believes the “transport visa-free regime” should be extended. We appreciate this. It is important that the permit-free movement of freight transport is also about integrating the Ukrainian market into the EU and the European market into our country,” said Serhiy Derkach.
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