Documents found
-
859.More information
Within the framework of the European Economic Community there is a fundamental economic imbalance between the Rhine basin and the Mediterranean regions ; the latter, less densely occupied and less developed, seek to bridge a gap which is bound to widen increasingly with the elimination of tariff barriers between the six member States of the E.E.C.The port complex and metropolitan region of Marseilles are especially well located in this respect, at the southern end of the great North Sea - to - Mediterranean inland waterway axis. The improvement of the latter for use by 1 350-ton river craft (this being known as the « European draft »), under construction or planned, falls within this perspective. Such a deep-draft waterway, followed by an expressway, an electrified trunk rail-way, and an oil pipeline, would allow the Marseilles port region and its tributary facilities to become « the Europort of the South ». In fact, for the past few years, an entire industrial complex has been established in the wake of the construction of the large petroleum refineries around the Etang de Berre, and the extension of these harbour and industrial facilities into the Gulf of Fos will permit the unloading of large ore and coal carriers and the beginnings of a coastal steel industry. Far more than the prospect of an enlarged European hinterland, it is the loss of part of Marseilles's traditional traffic, between 1958 and 1962, i.e. the colonial traffic, which has allowed the region to develop its petrochemical and industrial functions.