Brussels, 09/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 9 April, the European Commission drew up its first encouraging balance sheet of results, two years after its launch, of the European Union's strategy for the Danube Region. The Danube macro-region incorporates 14 different countries, 8 of which are EU member states (Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia), in addition to Croatia. The Commission is calling on the EU countries which fall within the strategy to integrate it immediately into their forecasts for the next generation of programme that will be covered by 2014-2020 regional policy.
In its report, the Commission says that the first phase for implementing the EU strategy for the Danube Region “has shown clear potential”. The Commission, however, is recommending that the regions and participating countries: - strengthen their internal implementation structures by guaranteeing sufficient financial support, political backing and greater institutional stability; - ensure continuity and provide appropriate mandates to the representatives participating in the steering groups by using structural funds programmes and the European Investment Fund for the 2014-2020 period; - provide a strategy with sustainable management and strategic planning structures so that the regions and participating countries can assume their responsibilities to the full;- ensure permanent implementation monitoring in all priority areas, including the commitment, at the political level, and concrete projects; - ensure that emphasis is more on results by focusing more attention on the appropriate targets and indicators, intermediate stages and roadmaps; - ensure the systematic integration of the strategy into national, regional and EU programmes for the 2014-2020 period (structural funds and European Investment Fund, the Horizon 2020 initiative and the Connecting Europe Facility).
The strategy particularly focuses on concrete and strategic initiatives and projects that have an impact at a macro-regional level. The strategy and its action plan are based around four pillars, in an effort to tackle the most significant issues effectively. The balance sheet of the projects carried out is as follows:
Connecting the Danube Region. New research projects on innovative ships, such as the NEWS project, are helping to develop technological solutions to renew the Danube fleet and promote more competitive and environmentally-friendly strategies. These include, for example, more efficient and less polluting engines and better designed ship hulls. All of this will help contribute to the overall target of increasing the sustainable transport of goods on the Danube by 20% by the year 2020. Sunken ships are currently being removed from the Danube, Sava and Tisa riverbeds, thus helping to improve navigation and the situation from an ecological point of view. The work on the gas inter-connection project between Bulgaria and Serbia has made progress. This seeks to link up the Baltic Sea region with the Adriatic and Aegean Seas and could even go as far as the Black Sea. The pipeline will be 150 kilometres long and will help to diversify and ensure the security of gas supplies and will complete the extensive regional gas supply mechanism, the “Ring”.
The approach focuses on the completion of the Calafat-Vidin Bridge, linking Romania and Bulgaria. This is only the second bridge along the 630-kilometre river section of the border. It represents a significant cog that is still missing from the Trans-European Transport Network. (TEN-T).
On 7 June 2012, transport ministers from the Danube Region countries adopted a declaration on the subject of maintaining the Danube waterways. This will involve commitments to ensure measures are taken (monitoring water levels, introducing signalling systems for navigation channels for less deep sections of the river). This declaration has led to an agreement between Romania and Bulgaria on jointly programming tasks to be carried out between them and sharing equipment. A Danube Region gas market model was also elaborated as a means of quantifying the regional impact of gas infrastructure projects planned for the region. This resulted in an agreement that is currently being adopted by countries in the Danube Region and which focuses on all the different policy recommendations for future projects in this domain.
Environmental protection. The European Commission's Directorate General for Research and Innovation has launched a call for tenders for research projects that will rethink environmental research and improve the way the results obtained are used at regional level.
The Danube Sturgeon Task Force has been set up to ensure the safeguarding of viable populations of this important species by facilitating measures that help to restock the river. This group has promoted a cross-cutting approach that has built links between biodiversity and action areas, such as water quality, habitat permeability, economic development, environmental awareness and even crime prevention (related to the illegal trade in caviar).
The “Danube Flood Risk” project involves risk management linked to flooding on the Danube and examines methods by which countries can work together. In all, 19 organisations belonging to 8 countries from the Danube Region are participating in this project and helping to speed up the completion of projects to develop common databases and flood mapping. The European Flood Awareness System is also carrying out work in this area.
Building prosperity. The European Commission's Directorate General responsible for communication networks, content and technology has launched a new e-infrastructure project as part of the 7th Framework Programme as a means of improving cutting edge IT service access for researchers. The new e-project for infrastructure will act as a bridge to the supercomputer facilities of the European PRACE initiative for countries in the Danube Region and even for some Caucasus countries.
The Danube regional enterprise forum is an important networking platform for more than 300 SMEs.
Technology transfer centres are currently up and running in the Danube Region and five pilot projects have been allocated to prestigious universities from the region, in an effort to enhance the ties between universities and the private sector.
Preparatory work for creating a Danube regional fund for research and innovation has begun. This has also begun to pool national and regional funds on the basis of the experience obtained by the common research and development fund for the Baltic Sea (BONUS). A joint declaration by research ministers from the Danube Region was signed in Ulm on 9 July 2012, paving the way for the preparatory work being undertaken.
Strengthening the Danube Region. Work has begun to set up a reference and services data infrastructure for the whole of the Danube Region, which focuses on common challenges, such as environmental protection, navigability, irrigation, agricultural diversification and energy production.
In January 2012, a meeting of police chiefs created an initiative to step up cooperation between the different police authorities in the Danube Region and improve measures for tackling river-related crime (including organised crime). This is also working towards the development of a transnational police and legal platform. Europol has also drawn up a specific project for analysing threats in the Danube Region. (LC/transl.fl)