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Bucharest-Danube Canal and Budapest-Bucharest-Constanta high-speed rail, among Romania's Danube Strategy projects

Construction of the Danube-Bucharest Canal, the implementation of a high-speed rail between Budapest-Bucharest-Constanta, Danube ports modernization and the construction of two new road bridges over the Danube to Bulgaria represent some of the projects of the Action plan of Romania for the the Danube region strategy, whose priority areas were presented on Thursday, February 3, in a press conference, by Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi, together with Infrastructure and Transport Minister Anca Boagiu and Minister of Regional Development and Tourism Elena Udrea.

'There are concrete things, it's not new money, we still have on the actual exercise of the EU budget by 2013 about 45 billion euros available, and we hope that, if by 2013 the projects included in the Action plan are launched and funded, we would be able to continue in the following multi-annual EU financial exercise, so that the already engaged projects reach finalization stage and, at the same time, we would also have a second generation of projects included in the Danube Strategy', Minister Baconschi stated.

Among other projects mentioned by him was to ensure navigability throughout the Danube navigable waterways and throughout the year, generalization of broadband Internet in urban areas, creation of an international institute for the Danube Delta and the Black Sea, development of a system for monitoring of ecosystems, improvement of water quality by constructing purification stations in most ports along the Danube.

Also, ministers Boagiu and Udrea presented extensively the projects afferent to the Danube Region Strategy which the ministries concerned will coordinate in the future , focusing mainly on the Danube-Bucharest Canal project.

The press conference organized on Thursday, at the MAE headquarters, took place after, the same day, in Budapest, the European Commissioner for regional policy, Johannes Hahn, announced the 11 areas of priority action of the Danube strategy, as well as the countries which will coordinate the implementation of projects covering these areas. The 11 areas are transport - river, land and air - energy, tourism and culture, water quality, risk management, biodiversity, research and education, competitiveness, human resources, administrative capacity and security of the citizen.

'Every state in the region can coordinate up to maximum three priority areas and an area can be coordinated by maximum two states. Each has subsumed several actions that will be implemented through the projects', stressed Minister Baconschi, pointing out that Romania will be involved in coordination of three areas - river transport (together with Austria), tourism and culture (together with Bulgaria), managing risks of extreme events (together with Hungary). MAE is the national coordinator of the implementation of Danube strategy projects, and it is going to form an inter-ministerial coordination structure.

'We see the strategy of the Danube as a green, sustainable strategy - that is oriented to environmental protection, based on new technologies and innovation, set to increase the quality of Romanian citizens's life, who live on the Romanian Danube river bank', said Minister Baconschi.

According to him, the fact that the Danube River was inert in recent decades has triggered development problems for the entire region south of Romania, but this disparity is to be alleviated in 10-15 years with the achievement of the highest part of the planned projects, and towns as Sulina and Braila (east) will regain their cosmopolitan character that they had 100 years ago.

The countries participating in the EU strategy for the Danube region are Germany (Länder Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria), Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania - EU Member States - plus Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, Agerpres informs.

Sursa: http://www.actmedia.eu

Tags: danube region areas minister projects strategy canal budapest bucharest air

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