A combination of environmental law and local resistance is stifling port expansion resulting in an inability of Europe to absorb an annual 11 per cent increase in Asian imports, says a report in The Wall Street Journal.
The average European port-expansion project delay caused by activism or environmental hurdles is now four years, according to Drewry Shipping Consultants, adding that in the first quarter, 73 per cent of containerships were delayed in European ports, a rise from 45 per cent in the first quarter of last year.
Supported by strict EU eco-law, a band of squatters and gypsies have sued to keep alive the condemned 17th-century Belgian village of Doel, delaying the first stage of Antwerp's port expansion by three years and now obstruct the building of a second container dock. Nearly a decade after authorities ordered Doel to be razed in 1998, it still stands, holding up expansion plans while harbour traffic has almost doubled.
US ports face environmental activists in Houston, Los Angeles and Charleston, S.C., where they have delayed port expansion projects, its coastline is less crowded and ports in Mexico and Canada are taking overflow.
The average European port-expansion project delay caused by activism or environmental hurdles is now four years, according to Drewry Shipping Consultants, adding that in the first quarter, 73 per cent of containerships were delayed in European ports, a rise from 45 per cent in the first quarter of last year.
Supported by strict EU eco-law, a band of squatters and gypsies have sued to keep alive the condemned 17th-century Belgian village of Doel, delaying the first stage of Antwerp's port expansion by three years and now obstruct the building of a second container dock. Nearly a decade after authorities ordered Doel to be razed in 1998, it still stands, holding up expansion plans while harbour traffic has almost doubled.
US ports face environmental activists in Houston, Los Angeles and Charleston, S.C., where they have delayed port expansion projects, its coastline is less crowded and ports in Mexico and Canada are taking overflow.