DITECFER brings together national and European experts on Military Mobility at the Port of La Spezia
DITECFER organised on February 26th the meeting of the ERCI Multi-Modal Logistics Task Force and dedicated it to the topic of ‘Military Mobility’: a very hot and pressing issue, also at the heart of the development of the TEN-T networks. For the EU, Military Mobility must ensure the rapid and seamless movement of personnel, material and military assets within and outside the EU, at short notice and on a large scale. The pillars to implement it combine the removal of physical obstacles (e.g. adaptation of rail, road, port, weight, height, gauge infrastructures), the de-bureaucratisation and digitisation of processes for cross-border transit, and the security and resilience of essential elements such as communications, networks, energy, and fuels. Topics on which the ERCI members DITECFER (Italy), In Move by Railgrup (Spain) and Logistics in Wallonia (Belgium) have expressed interest both in understanding what still needs to be achieved of all this, and in the possible spillover from civil to military logistics, and vice versa, with the ultimate goal of an overall optimisation of traffic flows.
This is why the European meeting, which brought together industrial, military, and infrastructure experts, was organised in La Spezia. The Port Authority of the Eastern Ligurian Sea, in fact, with the European project ‘SWIFTRAIL’, is one of the few Italian beneficiaries of the CEF call for proposals for Military Mobility, which aimed to finance the adaptation of infrastructures to dual-use transport requirements. The Port Authority of La Spezia, in particular, obtained over 9 million euro to contribute to the construction of the new, modern freight railway station in the port, capable of handling 50% of the containers that transit through the port by train, in accordance with the objectives of the Port Regulatory Plan. The project is also working on optimising railway flows to and from the port, with a focus on upgrading the Pontremolese railway line.
For Veronica Elena Bocci, DITECFER Coordinator and Vice President of ERCI: ‘The topic has a name that creates alarm, because dual-use is ethically divisive, but the aim we set ourselves with this meeting was to understand what is happening in Italy and Europe from an infrastructural and technological point of view, because, ultimately, anything that improves flows for military reasons can also benefit the transport of ordinary goods. It is no coincidence that Military Mobility also has a pillar called ‘Military Schengen’, and this explains a lot.’ She continues: ‘In 2024, four agreements for the establishment of cross-border military corridors were signed by EU and NATO member states, and one of them also concerns Italy, with the military corridor Italy-Albania-Northern Macedonia-Bulgaria along the TEN-T corridor VIII. The time is certainly right for us to ask questions and collaboratively seek technological answers to offer‘.
The ERCI Multi-Modal Logistics Task Force was established in 2020. It is co-led by the Clusters In Move by Railgrup (Spain) and Logistics in Wallonia (Belgium). Its founding goals are to identify the gaps that hinder the increased use of rail transport to move goods in Europe and to foster the development of solutions to solve or mitigate them, through technology and clustering of supply and demand.
The meeting in La Spezia was the second meeting of this Task Force to be organised by DITECFER in Italy; the previous meeting was on Blockchain technology applied to Multi-Modal Mobility and Logistics, and took place in Marina di Carrara in June 2022.
