As part of the Havennota 2020-2030, which was sent yesterday by the minster of infrastructure and water management to the parliament, the report by Erasmus UPT and Decisio about the research of the level playing field for Northwest-European seaports has been published. In this report the circumstances and working environments for seaports and the companies within seaports has been analysed for The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and France. Looking at the various aspects that determine whether the market is distorted, we conclude that the playing field between the seaports in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany is disrupted in a number of aspects. This is primarily due to higher financial contributions, both structural and incidental, from the German and Belgium government to their seaports in comparison with the Netherlands and France.
The whole report is available for download with this message (in Dutch, but with English summary). For more information about this report, you can contact Martijn Streng. You can find his contact details here.
The complete havennota, including accompanying letter, can be found on the website of the Dutch government: link to havennota