Baltic Gateway - Integrating the Seaways of the Southern Baltic Sea into the pan-European Transport System

The flow of passengers and goods has increased dramatically in the South Baltic Sea area: Klaipeda, Kaliningrad, Pomerania, West Pomerania, Warmia-Masuria, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schleswig-Holstein, Storstrøm, Skåne, Blekinge and Kalmar region. However, existing infrastructure and transport solutions are not ready to manage the growth in an efficient and sustainable way.

In the Baltic Gateway project, regional and local authorities, ports, transport authorities and private stakeholders in seven countries, joined forces to develop a common transport strategy. The strategy addresses, for example, efficient use of rail, road and short sea shipping services in the region.

A unique priority list of transnational investment projects - Baltic Gateway Quick Start Programme - was agreed by regional political leaders. It recognised that an efficient and sustainable transport system in the South Baltic Sea area requires capacity building in transport and logistics, improvements of intermodal hubs and investments in hinterland connections. As a result the political co-operation in transport and regional development was initiated on the axes: Copenhagen-Ystad-Swinoujscie-Wroclaw, Copenhagen-Blekinge-Klaipeda-Minsk and Copenhagen-Gedser-Rostock-Berlin.

After the bottlenecks for three corridors were identified - Øresund-Gedser-Rostock-Berlin, Copenhagen-Ystad-Swinoujscie-Wroclaw, Copenhagen-Blekinge-Klaipeda-Vilniu - concrete investments were prepared. For example, the installations of road telematics (e.g. tools used to manage the road system) for variable speed limits on road E22 were implemented in region Blekinge in Sweden. Studies on cross-docking centre in Lübeck-Travemünde resulted in an offer of private investment.

To strengthen transport and regional development reports on future transport trends, the sea transport infrastructure, and the development of traffic flows in specific corridors were produced and communicated.

Baltic Gateway project managed to achieve also the spin-off effects leading to new INTERREG initiatives like Baltic Gateway PLUS and East-West Transport Corridor.
This is a good example of strong political co-operation at the regional level.