European Transport Policy and Role of the Danube River

Abstract

Europe's strategies to overcome the challenges in its transport networks since the 1990s are described. In the 1990s, emerging traffic problems and the increasing number of bottlenecks in Europe's transport infrastructure forced the European Union to take action toward integrated transport planning. The political changes in Eastern Europe in 1989 needed to be considered in the development of infrastructure planning, and in 1996 the European Union defined the trans-European network, which covers all transport modes. The transport infrastructure needs assessment process analyzed the transport infrastructure in these countries from 1997 to 1999. Two conferences in 1994 and 1997 defined 10 Pan-European transport corridors in the European Union's neighboring areas. Corridor VII represents the Danube River from Germany to its delta at the Black Sea [2,415 km (1,500 mi)]. The Danube is connected by the Main–Danube Channel with the Rhine River and thus is a backbone of inland navigation in Europe. Improvement of the Danube is one of 30 prioritized projects that were defined by the Van Miert High-Level Group in 2003. Corridor VII has a high potential to solve upcoming transport problems in southeastern Europe. However, inland navigation must improve its services to meet the logistics market's requirements; many European Union–funded and national projects foster these aims.