Gijón and Nantes Saint-Nazaire Unveil Motorway of the Sea Project for 2028 in Brussels

Nieves Roqueñí, President of the Port Authority of Gijón, took part in Brussels in the Connecting Europe Days 2026, the forum organized by the European Commission on transport and mobility. Within that framework, Gijón and the Port of Nantes Saint-Nazaire jointly presented to European authorities and representatives of the Spanish and French governments a Motorway of the Sea project aimed at accompanied freight, semi-trailers and passengers, with the goal of launching the service in the first half of 2028.

The project seeks to reopen a Ro-Pax connection that would take trucks off the Atlantic Corridor, particularly away from the Irún-Biriatou bottleneck, through which around 10,000 heavy vehicles pass daily. According to the feasibility study carried out by a shipping company, a 70% occupancy rate is expected, with profitability to be reached after a three-year start-up phase, using a vessel of proven efficiency to limit the risk of the operation.

Roqueñí explained that support had been requested for the start-up phase of this cross-border Motorway of the Sea, stressing that the benefit is European in scope, not merely local. According to her statements, the project would avoid around 17,500 tonnes of CO₂ emissions and save €7.5 million a year in external costs by shifting 25,000 trucks away from road transport, in line with the modal shift targets of the Green Deal and the Trans-European Transport Network policy.

The project presentation was attended by the European Coordinator for the Atlantic Corridor, François Bausch, and the Coordinator for the European Maritime Space, Gessine Meissner, along with representatives from the Spanish and French Ministries of Transport, including the Secretary General for Planning, the Trans-European Network and Logistics, María Corral, and the Commissioner for the Atlantic Corridor, José Antonio Sebastián. Also present were the Regional Minister for Mobility, Environment and Emergency Management of the Government of the Principality of Asturias, Alejandro Calvo, and the Deputy Regional Minister for Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility, Jorge García.

The new 2026 Work Plan of the Atlantic Corridor Coordinator, presented at the forum, mentions the preparation of an alternatives study for an intermodal terminal in Gijón and refers to the Gijón-Nantes connection project as a contribution to the resilience of the European maritime system. The document also highlights the potential of the Asturian port as an energy hub, in the context of the rollout of alternative marine fuels and the supply chains linked to marine renewable energy.

During the Connecting Europe Days, the effects of the European Emissions Trading System (ETS) on port competition were also discussed. The President of the Port Authority of Bahía de Algeciras, Gerardo Landaluce, argued in a round-table discussion for the need to correct these effects and complete rail connections into the European interior, highlighting as urgent the modernization of the Algeciras–Bobadilla line and the development of the Algeciras–Zaragoza rail motorway.