The workshop brought together representatives of the shipping industry from Hungary, Serbia, Austria, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Germany and Croatia with the objective to improve the dialogue between the navigation sector and the Danube Commission under the newly elected General Secretariat. PDI participated in the workshop in order to raise the awareness of the Danube Commission for the severe navigation problems on the Danube.

In his presentation which was titled: “Guaranteed standards for waterway maintenance, Pre-condition for safe and cost-effective Danube navigation”, Mr Capatu explained the economic impact of neglected fairway maintenance and asked the new General Secretariat for concrete and tangible actions in the framework of the Commission´s work. He explicitly referred to Art. 4 of the Danube Convention which empowers the Danube Commission to act in case of failure of maintenance work under national responsibility.

In addition, Mr Seitz delivered a presentation on the EU TEN T co-financed LNG Masterplan for Rhine-Main-Danube and outlined the perspectives of LNG as vessel fuel and as a cargo on the Danube. In a follow-up meeting on executive level, the General Secretariat of the DC and PDI agreed on a closer co-operation in the future in order to achieve the common goal of infrastructure improvements.