North Adriatic Port Association in the governance of European Maritime Space

When the Motorways of the Sea concept was born in 2010, it was hailed as competitive alternative to land transport. The main goal was to de-congest busy European roads by integrating short sea shipping links with pan-European transport networks.

But implementing MoS turned out to be easier said than done. Governing MoS projects is complex because of their international scope and involvement of many public and private sector stakeholders who often have conflicting priorities. The original concept also lacked an environmental focus.

In 2024, MoS was replaced by a new concept - European Maritime Space - with the intention of making multi-modal links of sea motorways and land corridors more seamless, sustainable, and smarter.

Our case study team led by the Centre for Blue Governance (Aalborg University) and European Shippers' Council is researching how EMS is being implemented regionally by the North Adriatic Port Association, a collective of five ports (Ravenna, Venice, Trieste, Koper, Rijeka).

While there are signs of deepening collaboration, several challenges remain:

• Divergences in national priorities and policy alignment

• Fragmented institutional frameworks

• Limited cross-border administrative capacity

• Public-private governance misalignment

• Interoperability and logistical coordination issues

• Multilevel governance complexity