radio free europe
December 09, 2010
By Dave Keating
BRUSSELS -- Could the Danube river be as productive as the Rhine? The European Union would like to see the Danube follow its Western neighbour and increase its productivity.
By Dave Keating
BRUSSELS -- Could the Danube river be as productive as the Rhine? The European Union would like to see the Danube follow its Western neighbour and increase its productivity.
Brussels unveiled a proposal on December 9 to increase cross-border cooperation among the 10 countries bordering the "world's most international river." The proposal aims to increase cargo, build more transport links, and improve the river's environmental health.
EU Regional Policy Commissioner Johannes Hahn, an Austrian, said the strategy will involve all 14 countries in the Danube basin, which includes the river's tributaries. Six of these are not EU member states - Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Moldova, and Ukraine.
Strategic Goals
Hahn pointed out that while the Rhine carried 330 million tons of cargo in 2007, the Danube -- which is more than twice as long, flowing from southern Germany to Ukraine -- carried just 50 million tonnes of cargo in the same year. He said the Danube is not living up to its potential, using only 10 percent of its capacity.
The strategy calls for a 20 percent increase of cargo transport on the Danube by 2020, listing a series of proposed actions including the removal bottlenecks that are blocking navigation during low-water level. This usually involves deepening and widening the river.
It also identifies projects to clear shipwrecks and unexploded weapons from stretches of the lower Danube. Other suggested projects include building the Danube-Bucharest canal and modernising the Danube ship fleet to improve performance.
Mobility on the river isn't the only part of the strategy. It would also seek to increase road transport links in the region, including completion of two bridges over the Danube between Romania and Bulgaria and the road infrastructure leading to them.
The strategy is also focused on environmental concerns in the region. Hahn stresseed that the recent toxic sludge spill in Hungary underlined the importance of protecting the water quality of the Danube. Specifically, the strategy sets a goal of reducing agricultural nutrients in the Danube river basin to restore eco-systems of the Black Sea to 1960 levels by 2020. It also sets a target of securing a viable population of Danube sturgeons by 2020....more...
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The post you have made over here is really nice and it contains very interesting information as well. I love to know more and more about Danube because I love to go Danube for river cruising. It is my dream wish and I will complete it very soon also.
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