On 2 and 3 June the ESPO Conference will be gathering Europe’s ports, their stakeholders, and community, as well as EU policymakers and academics, in Valencia. The theme of the conference is“Empowering Europe’s ports”. Europe’s ports are no longer operating in a societal, commercial, and geopolitical safe and stable environment as we have known during the last decades. The global health crisis we went through over the last two years and the Russian invasion in Ukraine we are experiencing at the moment require ports to be agile and resilient at all times. At the same time, challenged by the upcoming multipolar world, Europe is trying to achieve strategic autonomy, thereby safeguarding a stable trade and economic environment and ensuring the security of supply of critical raw materials and goods. (....)