Following to a promotion in his professional carrier, the first PDA President, Mr Christian Steindl decided to resign from his function. In an extra-ordinary general assembly meeting, held on 31 October, a new management board was elected with Mr Friedrich Lehr becoming the new President. Mr Lehr holds the position of the commercial director of the Port of Vienna. He expressed the need to continue the excellent work in the start-up phase of PDA and thanked Mr Steindl for his strong commitment in the past.
As other new board members were elected: Ralph Gallob (Industrie-Logistik Linz), Christian Mokry (LogServ), Horst Felbermayr (Felbermayr), Alexander Klacka (Chamber of Commerce), Christoph Henöckl (Garant), Manfred Seitz (PDI) and Otto Schwetz who will function as Vice-President of the association.
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.
