These benefits will boost the European Union's growth potential and, according to recent research, could create up to one million new jobs. The total package could reduce road congestion by 14% and produce time savings for international traffic to a value of some ? 8 billion per year.

The Motorways of the Sea project aims at concentrating freight flows on a limited number of sea connections to ensure their financial viability while reducing road traffic. The importance of the development of Motorways of the Sea is to ensure that transnational maritime links between countries isolated for geographical reasons, or affected by road congestion, will be treated with the same importance as land links. Member states will be encouraged to jointly establish transnational maritime links through tendering procedures to avoid distortion of competition.

Community financial support will be allowed through start-up aid.

Motorways of the Sea will provide alternative routes to existing bottlenecks and will connect Europe with peripheral countries and island regions.

MJ Information No: 19500