The timely construction of the European Union's Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) is crucial to realising its priorities of strengthening and invigorating economic growth and addressing climate change-related challenges.
Marine underwriting, as the original line of insurance, has suffered in recent years and now finds itself buffeted from many directions, not least by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19).
This year's end grants us with a good opportunity to summarize the entire second decade of the 21st century, hence provide us with the answer whether it was favourable to the European shipbuilding industry in general and to the Baltic Sea region in particular. No, it was not.
One thing shared by all humans and animals is the natural requirement to use the privy, and yet our sensitivities and embarrassment stop us from having conversations about what really goes on in the smallest room (one notable exception, of course, must be the Japanese for whom the lavatory is not only a technical marvel but a luxury experience and source of great national pride!).
The passing year has been an unprecedented period of challenge for everyone in learning how to live, work and create a 'new normal' under the dark clouds of the coronavirus pandemic.
Issues and challenges surrounding the development of ports belonging to the TEN-T Comprehensive Network have long been one of the key areas of the Baltic Ports Organization's (BPO) agenda.
As we all know, 2020 has been an exceptional year. For all the negatives that the year has resulted in, it has also demonstrated how essential the port and shipping sectors are to global commerce as well as their resilience in the face of numerous challenges.
The shipping industry has repeatedly been accused of being a laggard, a business that would happily sail on heavy fuel oil till kingdom come, only investing in technologies that are needed to keep its blissfully analogous fleet afloat.
