The ruling of the Constitutional Court has given Latvia the freedom to look for the best and most effective sea port management model. At the same time, the sea port reform should be viewed in a broader context of the industry, not just as a sea port administrative management model, as Latvia’s Minister of Transport Kaspars Briškens said in an interview.
“It’s clear that it is generally a good decision, and it shows that management of strategic assets like sea ports should be left in the hands of the state. The state has full autonomy to select a management model that is the most appropriate for sea ports,” stressed the minister, adding that this will happen in the context of the entire transport sector’s reform.
He mentioned that the Ministry of Transport will submit a report to the Cabinet of Ministers by the end of the year to provide a vision for the sector’s management. It will not be a precise model just yet, but a first step towards planning the entire transport system’s operations, rather than planning individual sectors’ operations separately from one another.
The Ministry of Transport
will propose extending the term of the sea port reform by one more year.
“Sea ports are not isolated islands. Even railways are not isolated. The road infrastructure is not isolated. The digital infrastructure is not isolated. The developed countries of the world plan infrastructure of this kind in an integrated manner. Sea ports are a very important, but still a mere part of the entire transport ecosystem,” said Briškens, adding that it is necessary to find a much better way to cooperate and ensure the industry has the highest management standards.
He admits that the direction of the previous sea port reform was correct in the sense that
it is important to depoliticise sea port management.
However, previously the emphasis was on the reformation of the legal management framework, forgetting about the main issue: if the volume of Russian freight has gone down after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, how are Latvian sea ports supposed to make a living?
Briškens did not make it clear if the state could drop the idea regarding individual commercial associations in Riga and Ventspils to manage their ports, because in legal terms this is a secondary issue. What’s most important is ensuring that large ports cooperate with one another and assist one another, dropping the destructive competition and motivating sea ports to look for new freight and business development opportunities, as well as ensuring good management to raise sea ports’ management to a new level.
At the same time, he confirmed there will be no compromises for “politically appointed individuals” in management institutions and politicians’ attempts to interfere in sea port operations.
When asked if he is afraid of the position from the Union of Greens and Farmers, which has challenged the sea port reform in the Constitutional Court, Briškens said that he believes everyone is interested in seeing sea ports develop.
“I will try to convince all of my colleagues, regardless of their political affiliation, that we are all interested in our sea ports operating as indexes of opportunities, not as isolated islands with political influence and jealousy between each other, between municipalities and between municipalities and the state,” stressed the minister.
This is why the existing sea port management model cannot remain as it was in the past, because it was very ineffective and lacked strategic planning or marketing of a single state logistics corridor.
Also read: OPINION | Ventspils Municipal Council deputy: what lies behind the sea port “reform”?
Follow us on Facebook and X!