Representatives of Mediterranean ports met on March 10 and 11 in Marseilles in the framework of the European Med Programme. During two days, port representatives, academics and Mediterranean regions have been working on how to better understand their hinterlands and attract new flows.

Ensuring goods take the way of the sea rather than land transport is the main target of the meeting, as this is one of the common concerns of all the region's ports. This is why the Mediterranean ports, that are gathered together under the Backgrounds project - which is part of the European MED project - agreed to jointly address this issue launched in April 2009 under the auspices of Sicily Region.

The meeting held in Marseille is the third working meeting, attended by twenty representatives including the port of Koper, Port Authority of Patras, Center for Research and Technology of Greece and Valencia-based Port Institute for Studies and Cooperation (Feports).

"Our goal is to find tools to promote intermodality. The Sicily region participates in three European programs including Backgrounds, in which we are a leader. There are areas in Sicily where the ports are not used", explained Nicola Gambi, project technical assistant for Sicily Region, to Econostrum.info.

"We are currently identifying the area of influence of the ports to improve the relations of production system in the region. The objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the area of influence of the port by reducing traffic through the promotion of intermodality" said Julio Martinez Alarcon, head of training and cooperation within the Feports.

The next meeting of Backgrounds program is scheduled for September 2010 in the Slovenian port of Koper.