Trends in investments in port infrastructure in the mediterranean countries: convergence or divergence to EU policies?

Abstract

As Mediterranean ports and the state of their infrastructure turn to critical parts of the
European transportation networks, this paper analyses the trends in Investments in Port
Infrastructure (IPI) in four Mediterranean EU member states: Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece.
To remain competitive, ports need to integrate to multimodal networks. The improvement of
their infrastructure consists a decisive factor of this process. A selective modal allocation of the
investments devoted in transport infrastructure can also advance the use of environmentally
friendly transport modes through. As these demands have became EU policy targets, the paper
focuses on the national IPI policies followed in the Mediterranean countries assessing whether
they converge to EU policies. The findings suggest that, contrasting the policy targets that have
been set in the Common Transport Policy (CTP), the level of the investments devoted to projects
aiming to improve port infrastructure follows a negative trend in all the cases under examination.