Overview
The North Sea – Baltic Corridor stretches from the North Sea ports in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany to Poland and continues north through Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to Helsinki and Oulu in Finland and Luleå in Sweden. To the South, the corridor extends from Berlin and Warsaw via Lublin to Kyiv and from Magdeburg via Leipzig to Katowice and via Lviv to Kyiv and Mariupol in Ukraine. It includes rail, road, airports, ports, RRT's, inland waterway and links to the European Maritime Space. The biggest project on the corridor is Rail Baltica, a European standard gauge railway line connecting Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to Poland and the rest of the EU. The North Sea-Baltic Corridor consists of nearly 12 900 km of railways, 8 600 km of roads and 2 800 km of inland waterways.
Main bottlenecks and missing links
One of the most flagrant gaps in the corridor concerns the track gauge. Along the western and central parts of the corridor, the railway tracks are in European standard gauge but in Finland, the Baltic states and Ukraine they are still in wide gauge. Rail Baltica will close this gap on the NSB Corridor in the Baltic States. Plans are being made to extend the European standard gauge to Ukraine and Finland is considering how the European standard gauge could improve its connectivity and security of supply.
Challenges ahead
The NSB Corridor should be an accelerator for the green transition and help meet the targets of European climate legislation and the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy. Fuelling and charging infrastructure needs to be installed to supply cars, trucks, trains, ships and planes with low-carbon or renewable fuels. In addition, it needs to be considered how to make the infrastructure along the corridor resilient against climate change and extreme weather events.
Furthermore, the synergies with digital and energy infrastructure should be sought and the many cities should be better integrated into the corridor.
Success stories
Many projects were completed for all transport modes. For instance, twin-port project in Finland and Estonia which improves the traffic between Helsinki West Harbour and Tallinn Old Port; the dredging project in port of Klaipeda; rail and road projects in Poland; several projects in Germany ensuring safe parking spaces and removing bottlenecks; rail projects in Germany, the construction of the new IJmuiden Sealock and upgrade of Eefde locks in the Netherlands, and road projects in Belgium. The inland waterways on the corridor already meet nearly all requirements for 2030. Overall, there is good progress towards the objectives of the NSB Corridor.
Mr Jan Steinkohl, Adviser of the European Coordinator
Jan [dot] Steinkohl
ec [dot] europa [dot] eu (Jan[dot]Steinkohl[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)
Postal address:
North Sea-Baltic CNC / TEN-T
Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport
Rue de Mot 28
1049 Brussels
Belgium
Information Note
Information Note CEF Call 2014 North Sea-Baltic
Information Note CEF Call 2015 North Sea-Baltic
Information Note CEF Call 2016 North Sea-Baltic
Maps
North Sea-Baltic compliance map
Workplans
1st North Sea-Baltic TEN-T Corridor work plan
2nd North Sea-Baltic TEN-T Corridor work plan
3rd North Sea-Baltic TEN-T Corridor work plan
4th North Sea-Baltic TEN-T Corridor work plan
5th North Sea-Baltic TEN-T Corridor work plan
Projects North Sea-Baltic TEN-T Corridor
Studies
2nd study on the North Sea-Baltic TEN-T Core Network Corridor
North Sea-Baltic study abstract_(executive summary)