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Modifications undergone in global trade have forced ports to transform and move away from the city. This spatial distance contributes to a re-composition of territories and local governance. The analysis of medium-sized port cities is particularly illustrative in this respect. Their city-port relationship is especially robust and the mutual impacts of territorial and port dynamics emerge more clearly. Le Havre and Klaipeda (Lithuania) were therefore analysed. More than twenty interviews were carried out with some principal stake-holders, which facilitated to clarify the way in which the interplay between stakeholders’ structures port cities and influences the development of territories at several scales.

The main focus of the paper is on the container system development in the Baltic Sea Region studying cotemporary changes and organisation, as well as explaining the main driving forces of this situation. The Baltic Sea is a transport corridor between Eastern and Western Europe. Over the last decade maritime transport in the Baltic Sea area has changed significantly. The disintegration of the Soviet Union forced Russia to start developing its own Baltic ports and terminals and to find new routes to export its oil and gas. The Baltic ports have welcomed a remarkable growth, especially in oil transportation and containerised flows. The geographical configuration of the region naturally places it away from major global shipping lines. This situation is accentuated by the organisation of maritime regular lines, centred in Northern European ports. For this reason, the regional container network is mainly made up of feeder services.

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) is an automatic tracking system used on as a tool to increase navigation safety and efficiency as well as vessel traffic management. It enhances maritime safety and security. AIS’ contributions are undeniable in spite of some deficiencies and technical restrictions. This article presents the impacts and uses of AIS technology that can provide useful information to study maritime traffic, especially for the scientific community and port authorities. This desktop study is carried out in the framework of the implementation of a platform to reconstruct shipping routes using AIS data.

After the collapse of the USSR and the enlargement of the European Union to the Baltic, the border became the border between Russia and EU. Such transformations have several consequences on traffic or shopping and commercial activities. During the Soviet period, the borders were closed. Nowadays, they are open and become meeting places, passages and economy life spaces.On the one hand, the Russian Baltic boundary, like any frontier, is both a cut and a seam. More than many other, it also prompted economic exchanges. There is a new structuration of the goods’ movements to and from Russia, mainly in terms of raw materials or manufactured goods.On the other hand, cross-border trade develops in the region, mainly due to economic or tax differentials. That kind of trade is abundant in the region. Markets, mostly informal, were created along the borders between the CIS and the Baltic States.Finally, the boundary participates in a new organization of the business activities in the European Union area, particularly in large retail area or cross-border cities. Therefore, the paper will focus on cross-border trade or business practices in the region but also its spatial implications along the border between UE and CIS. It proposes to examine the discontinuities in the eastern Baltic at a rarely discussed angle, commercial and shopping circulations.

The years between independence of the Baltic States and European enlargement bore witness to substantial structural changes on the Baltic coasts. The harbor industry did not escape from this necessary reorganization, all the more so as its role is essential to the economies of the region. The ports bear witness to the Baltic nations’ rapid recovery and neighboring Russia’s difficulty in passing to a market economy. While, with the development of container and ferry transport, the ports of the region are now integrated into the world maritime organization, their specificity lies in the large scale of Russian transit, particularly of petroleum products, without which most would go under. There is strong competition. It is the main causes of the spatial reorganization of regional maritime traffic and its concentration in the Gulf of Finland. The port range has significantly changed, economically opening up to the world using its regional and North-European relations.

Over the past two decades, the Baltic sea has known multiple upheaveals, both political and economic. They have notably forced ports to change and adapt to the evolving maritime industries. The ports of the Eastern Baltic have gone from a complementary position as instruments of Soviet collectivism to becoming integrated within a global maritime and portuary system that is synonymous with liberalism. In addition, the issue of modifying governance and portuary regulations, within a rapidly evolving area, is of particular interest to the Baltic space. A literature review and a fieldwork based on two dozen interviews (with elected officials, representatives of port authorities, directors of dock handling companies, heads of chambers of commerce, lobbyists…) highlights how the choices of actors structure ports and affect territorial development (ports, urban areas, inland).