On 28 October 2013, the European River-Sea-Transport Union e.V. (ERSTU) organised a conference in Budapest with the theme “The future of the Danube in an enlarged European Economic Area”. The event brought together about 100 representatives of European inland waterway transport organizations, international shipping organizations and of public authorities. Mr Seitz provided an overview on PDI activities as well as on the LNG Masterplan project. Special emphasis he put on the shortcomings of Hungarian authorities in providing the internationally agreed fairway depth standards. As a follow-up ERSTU and PDI agreed on a closer cooperation and exchanged corresponding membership status.
The 2nd Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region was organized by the Romanian Government and the European Commission at the Parliament Palace in Bucharest. The Forum brought together government representatives from the 14 riparian countries, European officials (European Commission, European Parliament), academics as well as delegates from the business sector and the civil society. Mr Capatu was the only representative from the industry sector being invited to provide a speech which reflects the high credibility of our organization in the EUSDR process.
In his speech, Mr Capatu reinforced the urgent need for action on the fairway maintenance problems in general and in particular with regard to the critical situation in Bulgaria. In addition, he deliberated the recommendations of PDI on port infrastructure investment, fleet modernization and the reduction of administrative barriers in order to enable the Danube sector to prosper economically.
PDI also provided information on its work and its projects like the LNG Masterplan via an exhibition booth. The strong presence of PDI led to in-depth discussions with a high number of Forum participants enabling PDI to further raise the political awareness for the needs of our members.
Being in Bucharest, Mr Capatu took advantage to participate on 28 October also in the 7th European Conference of the Danube Cities and Regions. This conference was organised to support the Annual EUSDR Forum and was attended by the Mayors of Bucharest, Ulm and Regensburg, the Minister for European Affairs of Baden-Württemberg as well as many officials and stakeholders from national and regional authorities.
In May of this year, IFC/Worldbank invited PDI/Mr Seitz to present PDI´s viewpoints on administrative barriers for Danube transport as an input to its major project initiative on trade facilitation on the Western Balkans. This project is a 2.5 year, 2 million USD exercise co-funded by the European Commission and by client government contributions. The project addresses regulatory and administrative bottlenecks to cross-border trade which is a pre-condition for improving the current border-crossing situation on the Danube.
Following the first exchange of information, Mr Seitz was invited to participate a working meeting of the project on 27 September in Belgrade. He elaborated the existing problems for waterway transport in the Danube region and in particular with regard to the border crossing procedures for transport with and through Serbia. Representatives from Serbian authorities expressed their willingness to improve the current situation. Concrete improvements should be executed in the framework of an IFC facilitated implementation project. This project is currently in its design phase. PDI and IFC agreed to continue the exchange of information with regard to this forthcoming project.
The workshop brought together representatives of the shipping industry from Hungary, Serbia, Austria, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Germany and Croatia with the objective to improve the dialogue between the navigation sector and the Danube Commission under the newly elected General Secretariat. PDI participated in the workshop in order to raise the awareness of the Danube Commission for the severe navigation problems on the Danube.
In his presentation which was titled: “Guaranteed standards for waterway maintenance, Pre-condition for safe and cost-effective Danube navigation”, Mr Capatu explained the economic impact of neglected fairway maintenance and asked the new General Secretariat for concrete and tangible actions in the framework of the Commission´s work. He explicitly referred to Art. 4 of the Danube Convention which empowers the Danube Commission to act in case of failure of maintenance work under national responsibility.
In addition, Mr Seitz delivered a presentation on the EU TEN T co-financed LNG Masterplan for Rhine-Main-Danube and outlined the perspectives of LNG as vessel fuel and as a cargo on the Danube. In a follow-up meeting on executive level, the General Secretariat of the DC and PDI agreed on a closer co-operation in the future in order to achieve the common goal of infrastructure improvements.
