Overview Winmos IV

The main objective of the project WINMOS IV – Safeguarding Winter Navigation in the European Maritime Space is to ensure sustainable, functional, resilient and efficient cross-border short-sea shipping and year-round maritime transport by providing icebreaking services through five upgraded icebreakers and one newly constructed vessel. The project mitigates the bottleneck caused by sea ice during winter in the European Union’s northernmost waters in the Baltic Sea.

The project upgrades the winter navigation system and the icebreaker fleet by constructing a new Finnish icebreaker to replace an over 70-year-old vessel and by upgrading five existing Swedish icebreakers. The new icebreaker enables the use of green fuels and advances the green transition towards a carbon-neutral icebreaker fleet. The project modernizes maritime transport and upgrades open-access short-sea shipping links serving several TEN-T core and comprehensive ports in the Baltic Sea.

The project supports the European Transport Corridors via EMS, ensuring year-round accessibility to Finland and Sweden. It contributes to the general priorities by supporting military mobility goals and improving the resilience of transport infrastructure to climate change. Moreover, the project reduces the environmental impact of maritime transport and improves its efficiency, contributing to climate neutrality by 2050.

WINMOS IV is part of a broader initiative to develop winter navigation in the Baltic Sea involving Finland, Sweden and Estonia. Based on long-term cooperation in winter navigation at Member State level, the countries jointly strengthen security of supply. Previous WINMOS projects have been co-funded by the EU. The current consortium consists of the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency (FTIA) and the Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA).