ESC at Connecting Europe Days

The Connecting Europe Days is Europe’s mobility flagship event. The 2024 event took place from 2nd to 5th April at the SQUARE in Brussels, Belgium.

The event brought together more than 2,500 participants from all EU Member States and neighbouring third countries. Participants included industry representatives such as the European Shippers Council, politicians, financial institutions, transport stakeholders, the European Commission, and other international organisations.

The Connecting Europe Days 2024 focused on four main topics:

– The launch of the nine new ‘European Transport Corridors’ of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T), which also extend to neighbouring third countries.
– Competitiveness of the TEN-Ts.
– The resilience of the European transport network to climate change.
– Connectivity of our transport network with neighbouring third countries and its preparedness for external security threats.
– The future of funding and financing opportunities for transport infrastructure projects.

The European Shippers’ Council and other participants had the opportunity to see state-of-the art innovations at an exhibition of EU-funded projects. The event was organised together with the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU.

The ESC´s Secretary-General Godfried Smit applauded the organisation of the event. Mr. Smit highlighted the emphasis given to competitiveness and supply chain resilience as “crucial not just to weather crises, but also to come out stronger on the other side”.

On another note, the ESC´s Secretary-General highlighted that the community of traders should not be made to bear, alone, the brunt of costs related with security.