Although efforts have been made to diminish it, the financial crisis in the Eurozone has deepened since EU ministers endorsed the European Commission’s proposal for a strategy for the Danube Region more than a year ago.
The Danube Region includes some of both the richest and poorest territories in Europe and it is all the more important in this period of economic crisis for them to work together to maximise their potential and generate growth and jobs. The strategy helps facilitate these measures, and an Action Plan for the region comprises concrete actions and projects – for instance, improvement of interconnections (such as the navigation on the Danube and interconnection with railway transport), innovation promotion by exchange of good practice, networking and joint initiatives, as well as competitiveness stimulation by linking businesses.
Launched in June 2011, the Danube strategy is aimed at boosting economic development and also at improving, among others, cross-border transports in 14 countries, including EU member states Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia – as well as non-EU countries Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and Ukraine.
One of the four main pillars of the stra-tegy focuses on improving mobility and encouraging sustainable energy. The strategy was accompanied by an action plan, defining 11 specific priority areas. Since it was approved, targets have been defined in each area and many concrete projects have been identified or considered.
The 1st Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) organised by the Government of Bavaria and the European Commission will take place in the period November 27-28 in Regensburg (Bavaria). The reunion aims at evaluating the implementation phase one year after the launch of the Strategy. Entitled “How can the Danube Region help to have a more competitive Europe?”, the conference will also encourage a reflection on the potential contribution of the macro-regional perspective to Europe’s growth.
The EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) is the second major exercise in EU cooperation, following the example of the Baltic Sea Region where ministers and policy-makers implement policies, programmes and projects on a series of common concerns.
Miodrag Poledica, the Head of Department at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy of Serbia, told SETimes that targets in his area focus on improving railway, road and air mobility and intermodality.
They include developing multimodal terminals at river ports and dry ports for the purpose of connecting inland waterways to railway and road transport by 2020, and improving travel times for competitive railway passenger connections between major cities.
In addition, four railway freight corridors crossing the Danube region are to be developed within the next five years. A new one linking the railway systems of EU and non-EU member states may also be included.
Targets for the Danube Region are currently being formulated in a coherent and transnational way due to the Danube Stra-tegy. They have been set in order to prioritise development efforts. For example by 2020, efficient multimodal terminals at Danube river ports, as well as dry ports shall be developed to connect inland waterways to railway and road transport.
The Vidin-Calafat Bridge between Bulgaria and Romania to be completed at the end of 2012, and part of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), represents an important project of the Danube Strategy which will facilitate railway connections between north-western Bulgaria, south-western Romania and eastern Hungary.
In the period June 27 – July 1, EU Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn visited seven of the states participating in the Danube Strategy. The aim of the trip through Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria was to assess what can be improved.
In its turn, the Danube River is an essential part of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), being Corridor VII on the map of TEN-T. At the same time, it is extremely important for the development of the freight traffic, especially to the Port of Constanţa.
Danube needs solid connection to railway networks in the states it crosses and where these connections exist already, a better coordination of transport operations is needed in the river-railway traffic. Likewise, an important role in the development of projects from the region is played by logistics, as well as by the development of related multimodal and freight terminals by 2020.
“The Danube Region is the second most supported macro-region in the European Union and is crossed by six TEN-T corridors, more precisely Corridor IV: Dresden/Nuremberg – Prague – Vienna/Bratislava – Budapest – Bucharest – Constanţa – Sofia – Thessaloniki/Plovdiv – Istanbul; Corridor V: Venice –Ljubljana –Budapest –Lviv; Corridor VI: Gdansk –Katowice –Žilina – branch Katowice – Brno; Corridor VIII: Durres – Tirana – Skopje – Sofia –Plovdiv – Burgas – Varna – Constanţa; Corridor IX: Helsinki – St. Petersburg – Kiev – Chişinău – Bucharest – Dimitrovgrad – Alexandroupolis; Corridor X: Salzburg – Ljubljana – Belgrade – Skopje – Thessaloniki”, declared Franc Zepic, Priority area coordinator for the Danube Region – Slovenian Ministry of Transport, on the occasion of his participation in the Railway Days 2012 Summit.
“Besides the development of freight transport, the goals of the Danube Strategy also include the improvement of travel times for competitive railway passenger connections between major cities”, added Zepic.
According to the representative of the Slovenian Ministry of Transport, a series of actions “have been agreed upon within the Danube Strategy among which the completion of TEN-T priority projects and of freight corridors crossing the Danube Region and overcoming the difficulties and the bottlenecks including environmental, economic and political, particularly in the cross‐border sections. Thus, we aim at ensuring sustainable metropolitan transport systems and mobility, as well as at improving the regional and cross‐border infrastructure and the access to rural areas”.
“130 projects have been submitted within the Danube Strategy, 51% of which belong to the railway area. Among the 130 projects, 17 have already been approved, and out of them, seven projects are related to the railway transport”, also mentioned Franc Zepic.
Cooperation has already begun to intensify in the Region, especially through the EU cohesion policy and the transnational programme called “South-Eastern Europe”. Structural Funds available for 2007-2013 reach approximately EUR 100 Billion.
Other funding sources are also available, such as those from international financing institutions like the European Investment Bank and via regional and local authorities.
Following the example of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, the first of its kind macro-regional approach, the EU Strategy for the Danube Region will harness the various efforts of the Region’s stakeholders, allowing them to create a secure, prospe-rous and fair Region for all its 115 million residents.
The four priorities created, called “pillars”, are: connecting the Danube Region; protecting the environment in the Danube Region; building prosperity in the Danube Region and strengthening the Danube Region. As a coherently structured framework, the Strategy represents a new form of cooperation for partners in the area and focuses on the coordination of existing financial instruments and policies, not on the creation of new ones, nor the creation of new institutions or new bureaucracy.
Four factors are considered when actions and projects are being identified; more precisely the projects should address already identified priorities and benefit from clear support, they should have an impact on the macro-region (or a significant part of it), they should be realistic, coherent and mutually supportive. The Strategy is based on an integrated approach and actions have to be balanced in order to reach the most sustainable solutions.
Linked by the Main-Danube Canal, the Rhine and Danube connect 11 Nordic countries to the Black Sea, representing the backbone of the Region. But the full potential of inland navigation is not being used all along this important route: the freight vo-lumes transported on the Danube are only between 10 and 20 % of those transported on the Rhine. Multimodal transports must also be facilitated. State borders in the Region have changed considerably in the recent past. One negative result is the lack of investments in cross-border links for all transport modes, but especially for railway and road.
In addition, the vision of the Danube Strategy is in line with the EU’s Europe 2020 strategy aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% compared to 1990 levels and at increasing energy efficiency by 20% until 2020. A significant share of freight traffic will be shifted from the road to the Danube, exploiting the potential of inland waterway transport, which involves low energy consumption, greater capacity, low CO2 emissions and low transport costs.
“The EU Danube Strategy, like the Baltic Sea Strategy, is a test bed for the macro-regional model and for efficient territorial cooperation,” says Romania’s Member of the European Parliament, Silvia-Adriana Ţicău, who chairs the “MEP Danube Forum”, a platform created within the European Parliament. “We expect the Strategy to contribute significantly to improving coordination between authorities and organisations operating in the Danube Region”, concludes Ţicău.
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