A few weeks ago, Ljubljana hosted the first conference “Danube Region Transport Days for Priority Area 1b: improvement of mobility and multi-modality – railway, road and air connections”, organized by the coordinators of the area, Slovenia, through the Ministry of Infrastructure and Land Planning and Serbia, through the Ministry of Transport.
The reunion aimed to increase the awareness of the transport system in the region, of transport research and planning focusing on the opportunities generated by the Danube Strategy and on conveying the stimulants necessary to implement relevant projects within the Strategy.
Financial aspects held a very important position on the agenda and the accent fell on the existence of a financial instrument dedicated to the Danube Strategy and included in the next programming period 2014-2020. The significant financial differences – as allocation and objectives – between the EU member states and third countries have also been pointed out. The funds of non-EU members are limited and the proposed solution in this case was the access of non-EU member states to the Connecting Europe Facility and more interest paid to regional investments by the Western Balkans Investment Framework 2014-2020.
Participants have also pointed out the need to identify viable PPP schemes for the transport sector, to appoint project managers, to recast the Action Plan, to use available funds more efficiently, to combine them and to reflect the priorities set in the strategy and in the programming period 2014-2020. Currently, the Strategy has as main financial support the structural and regional funds and the European Commission has indicated the sum of around EUR 95 Billion.
As in the case of the above-mentioned event, most of the debates lately carried out in the business environment are dominated by the concern towards the up-coming budget cuts – either European or national – and the national authorities’ difficulty to continue the implementation of reforms and to develop new projects in these conditions. The situation is understandable since less money means fewer chances to meet the objectives already defined in the European policies. It’s a vicious circle that will certainly generate “interesting moments” for the railway sector as well.
by Cristina Trifon
Head of Business Development & Strategic Alliances
Club Feroviar
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