Pro Danube International was represented by its Chairman, Mr. Herfried Leitner, and its General Secretary, Mr. Robert Rafael at the
13th Working Group Meeting of the Rhine-Danube Corridor on Ports and Inland Waterways. With Pro Danube being actively involved in the
DIONYSUS project, which core objective is to address the main regional challenges in port infrastructure governance and planning in order to facilitate the integration of the Danube Region into smart and sustainable multi-modal transport chains, the meeting proved extremely fruitful from a multitude of perspectives. It provided a platform to discuss and present the ongoing proceedings directly affecting the legislative framework on inland waterway transport, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Danube riparian countries, and last but not least, information on the status quo of digitalisation and alternative fuels as well as on the current status of the revision of the TEN-T Regulation.
Regarding digitalisation – vital in making IWT more efficient - Pro Danube’s Chairman, Mr. Leitner, asked how the European Commission puts the advantages of digitalisation into balance: what is the concrete benefit for river ship owners since currently, they are not able to see the operating vessels on one, harmonised platform. The answer provided suggested that there is still the challenge of data protection while the expectation is that this issue, addressed by
RIS COMEX, will be solved in the foreseeable future. The conclusions of the meeting and the collected information will feed into the ongoing proceedings of the DIONYSUS project.
In the aftermath of this meeting, the representatives of Pro Danube joined the
15th Online Meeting of the Rhine-Danube Core Network Corridor Forum. High on the agenda of the meeting was the presentation of the progress of the updated Study on the Rhine-Danube TEN-T Core Network 2021. The presentation addressed several aspects, such as: What has changed compared to the findings in 2017? Which bottlenecks still hamper multimodality? What is the status quo of ongoing projects? This and further relevant questions will be touched by the study which is expected to be published soon.
Pro Danube urged for the long-term solution for the fairway management works on the Romanian-Bulgarian joint Danube section. Its representatives also highlighted that besides the available depth in the fairway, it also has to be ensured that the port entrances are also providing the proper depth to enter/leave the port with loaded draught as on the fairway.
Other important aspects discussed in the framework of the meeting refer to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on multimodality and to the expected financing opportunities for the transport sector foreseen for the period 2021-2027.
