Several industry representatives of the Danube region, united in the ProDanube association, request more concrete actions from the governments of the Danube States in the framework of the new European transport and regional development policies.
These actions are necessary to overcome shortcomings in waterway infrastructure, to expand the Danube ports into centres for regional development and to foster the modernisation of the Danube fleet:
- Establish and ensure effective waterway infrastructure management
- Execute the pre-defined TEN T bottleneck infrastructure projects
- Develop the Danube Ports into effective centers of intermodal logistics and industrial growth
- Facilitate the modernisation of the Danube Fleet
- Abolish all unnecessary administrative barriers for waterway transportation
- Optimise financial support schemes of the European Union to stimulate investment in the sector
The EU Strategy for the Danube Region aims to exploit the full potential of the Danube navigation by removing obstacles to navigability and to increase transport volumes on the Danube River by 20% by 2020. The Danube is also an integral part of the Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T) and the financing instrument Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). Together with the Programs for European Territorial Cooperation and the EU Research Program Horizon 2020, the new EU Programing Period 2014-2020 must be used to overcome existing structural problems and shortcomings.
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