ESO looks after the interests of the European private inland shipping entrepreneurs on the European level. Its General Assemblee is composed of representatives of Belgian, Dutch, French, German and Polish inland waterway transport organisations.

The European Skippers Organisation is founded in 1975 in Brussels to make the voice of the independent IWT entrepreneurs clearly heard by the European Commission, formerly the EEC. Since then, ‘Brussels’ has come to see inland waterway transport (IWT) as a serious and sustainable alternative.