Cofinancé par
l'Union européenne
The Seine-Scheldt network will run through a territory that includes several large cities where 40 million people live and work, and will open up a new gateway to Europe for the trade of goods and the transport of passengers.
In the early 2000s, awareness of the impact of land and air transport on the climate and the planet (carbon footprint, noise pollution, congestion, insecurity, etc.) led European territories to incorporate waterways into the heart of their approach to cooperation once again.
The challenge involved speeding up the modal shift towards river transport against a backdrop of the rise in trade and traffic. The Seine-Scheldt network must respond to this challenge. It is the centrepiece of the North Sea-Mediterranean Corridor, one of the 9 multimodal corridors that should enable the development of a core trans-European multimodal transport network by 2030.
VNF has been responsible for managing the Seine-Scheldt EEIG since 2010.
Within the Seine-Scheldt EEIG, there is a high quality collaboration, committed to dialogue, consultation and high standards. The members are in regular contact and have spent years working together, giving rise to a genuine spirit of partnership within the group. This means that the Seine-Scheldt EEIG can oversee the implementation of the network in accordance with the Implementing Decision drawn up with the European Commission.
The European Economic Interest Grouping (Seine-Scheldt EEIG) is a partnership body tasked with coordinating the Seine-Scheldt project. Established on 26 March 2010, it is now composed of 4 partners: Voies Navigables de France (VNF), De Vlaamse Waterweg nv, Service Public de Wallonie (SPW), the respective operators of inland waterways in France, Flanders and Wallonia, as well as the Société du Canal Seine-Nord Europe (SCSNE), in charge of the design and construction of the Canal Seine-Nord Europe.
These four operating entities are tasked, in particular, with studying and proposing to the Intergovernmental Commission (Seine-Scheldt IGC) the resources to employ to implement coordination of the project financing, coordination of the conditions for developing the Seine-Scheldt network, especially to ensure the gradual development of the service offering in France, Flanders and Wallonia until 2030 along all sections of the Seine-Scheldt network.
Seine-Scheldt is a partnership project to construct and pool, between European regions, an integrated logistics system to establish sustainable added value in industry, agriculture, construction and public works and the circular economy.
The construction of this logistics system goes beyond regenerating river works along the 1,100 km of the network and creating the missing link, the Canal Seine-Nord Europe. It requires the development, on a European scale, of a cooperation project with all the local authorities, manufacturers, logisticians, carriers, seaports, inland ports, waterway, rail and road infrastructure operators to establish modern, secure, clean, multimodal, innovative, connected and digitised logistics that will benefit public policy and the European economy.
To supplement local and national financing, the Seine-Scheldt project enjoys considerable European financing. In fact, considering the importance of the project at the heart of the European multimodal transport network, the European Union has decided to finance 40% of the cost of the works and 50% of the cost of the studies over the 2014-2020 period, after providing initial support of €420 million during the 2007-2014 period.
The European Union has also committed, through an implementing decision signed in June 2019, to continue its support to the project during future financing periods, with the possibility of financing up to 50% of the cost of the work. This crucial support makes Seine-Scheldt one of the most important European Union transport projects and the most vital for the continent’s waterways.
