AGERPRES special correspondent Florin Stefan reports: Romania and Bulgaria should submit a project for the Fast Danube 2 programme by the end of the call for projects in September, which has its time limit in January and for which there is funding and which is viewed favourably by the European Commission, European Commissioner for Transport Adina Valean said in Strasbourg on Tuesday, write Agerpres.

The project is aimed at ensuring the navigability of the Danube all year round. This is one of the issues discussed by Adina Valean in Bulgaria last week, as part of an initiative to strengthen connectivity with Romania and Greece on the North-South axis.

„I would like to remind you that in the framework of the regulation revising the European transport routes and maps, we have introduced an additional corridor to the existing ones, namely the North-South Corridor linking the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, obviously, being on this corridor, we discussed an intensified collaboration among these three countries for connectivity,” said Adina Valean during a briefing for Romanian journalists.

She said that traditionally connectivity to the south, with Bulgaria, has been deficient, in the context that throughout the pre-accession years and during and in the years since joining the European Union, the focus has been on East-West connectivity.

„There is now an opportunity to tighten the links on the North-South axis, which would be very useful both from the point of view of military mobility and for the connection between these three seas, which are entry points for the European cargo corridors and transport corridors. In this discussion we insisted on the honest participation of Romania and Bulgaria in the Fast Danube project,” the European Commissioner said.

Adina Valean said that she expects the call for projects launched in September, with a deadline in January, to see „a joint Romania-Bulgaria project on Fast Danube 2, which would mean ensuring the navigability of the Danube all year round.”

„The Commission favours this project, we have funding for it. All that is missing is the submission of the project by the two partners – Romania and Bulgaria. Of course, we hear a lot of things, why it is delayed, especially because of the environmental studies in Bulgaria related to the first Fast Danube 1 project, which is practically not closed because of the absence of an environmental study. I also insisted in Varna with the Bulgarian officials, I will send the Commission experts again on a joint visit to mediate and close the Fast Danube 1 project and prepare the implementation of the Fast Danube 2 project,” she explained.

Adina Valean also said that Romania has also submitted a project for „a so-called road bridge with an option for rail” at Giurgiu-Ruse and that a Craiova-Calafat project for rail is also pending.

„We have a bridge there, but the access routes from Romania and Bulgaria are not up to standard and it would be very important if this project could be proposed because there would be a dedicated funding line for these cross-border projects and it would be the last possibility for Romania and Bulgaria to access this money for this connectivity at Calafat-Vidin,” she pleaded.