European straits' conference - PASSAGE project, low-carbon transition in action

The last round table questioned the opportunity of low-carbon transition of straits’ areas, based on the results of the Interreg Europe PASSAGE project involving 10 European Straits Initiative partners. Ms Hingrez-Cereda, Vice President of Pas-de-Calais County Council (France – lead partner of the project) explained that this topic is a stake for the future, as we see that there is a climate deregulation (…) and in straits we measure it with marine submersion, coastal erosion…. Behind PASSAGE project, there is an issue around pollution generated in straits, she said, we needed to look closer and try to quantify, to measure, taking into account the activities on the sea (mostly the maritime traffic) and the activities on the coastal areas that are generated by the cross-border and maritime dimensions of our territories.

Ms Koula Kyriaki, project manager in the Region of Ionian Islands (Greece), explained: we created a stakeholder group with the Region, the chamber of commerce, the technical chamber of Greece (as a technical advisor), the port authority of Corfu, the Ionian university, the Greek energy power company and the municipality of Corfu. We made a lot of efforts to convince them that there is really a problem. We have presented them lots of good practices from other partners, to show them how they try to solve the problem. Mr Jesper Bille, project manager for Fehmarnbelt Development (Denmark), highlighted the specific context of the tunnel project – that will considerably change the mobility in the Fehmarnbelt region once it opens. The work as part of the local action plan focuses on this specific topic and tries to anticipate this new mobility behaviour to offer low-carbon alternatives, thanks to new train stations.

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