EU Danube strategy – creating a regional lifeline – INE release

EU Danube strategy – creating a regional lifeline

Inland Navigation Europe (INE) welcomes this month’s Danube conference. The Danube, like all waterways, is a multi-functional catalyst for regional and natural development. It supplies water and energy, fosters leisure and tourism and provides sustainable transport of goods and people. The Danube Strategy must consolidate these functions, creating a lifeline for the entire region in which all activities co-exist, benefitting business and society alike.

INE calls for a consolidated strategy taking into account three types of actions:

• Horizontal actions that acknowledge the river’s many functions and foster mutually beneficial developments that complement each other. The challenge is to combine industry, agriculture, flood protection, tourism, drinking water, wastewater management, nature protection, hydropower and inland navigation in a co-operative and consultative fashion, creating win-win situations. The strategy is an excellent opportunity for joint value creation at national and cross-border level.
• Actions that look to the future through creating waterway connections within the Danube regions and between the Danube region and the surrounding European Union regions, ensuring that the Danube river becomes a green corridor, playing a lead role in integrating green waterway transport into logistics supply chains. Collaborative solutions are the answer to continuing to transport goods while lowering carbon emissions and pollutions. The strategy provides an ideal opportunity to create these collaborative solutions.
• Actions that are aimed at making the Danube a river basin for clean shipping and improving the Danube basin eco-system. These include establishing a dedicated programme for the modernization of inland ship engines, supporting the research and development of ultra low emission ships and the implementation of the Danube joint statement on Inland Navigation and Environmental Sustainability.

This process can lead to a better and more integrated use of inland navigation (the most environmentally friendly form of transport) on the river Danube and contribute to the creation of a sustainable and efficient transport system. When stepping up cooperation, projects need to be streamlined and fast-tracked, and administrative burdens need to be minimised.

Quelle: Caroline Smith