The Danube and the Black Sea should be managed as a single transport system, connecting river and maritime operations rather than treating inland navigation, shipping, logistics networks and environmental protection separately. This is the main recommendation emerging from a conference held in Ruse, Bulgaria. The event was organised by the Bulgarian ministries of Transport and Regional Development, with support from the Black Sea Assistance Mechanism and the Bulgarian presidency of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region. Representatives of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) and Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) also attended. Bulgaria chairs the Common Maritime Agenda for the Black Sea in 2026, providing an opportunity to bring the two policy areas closer together. Discussions highlighted the need for digital interoperability, simpler administrative reporting, waterway maintenance and the development of ports as multimodal hubs to increase freight traffic along the corridor. Three existing funded programmes provide the framework for integration: Comex², Fairway Danube II and Dismar.
Comex² builds on an earlier project covering River Information Services, aiming to harmonise them across the entire corridor. It follows the principle that information should be submitted to the relevant authorities only once during a voyage. The project has a total budget of €36.5 million and involves 20 organisations from 13 European countries, alongside three cooperation partners from Switzerland, Serbia and Ukraine. The funding, 50% of which comes from the EU's Connecting Europe Facility (CEF2), covers the entire international project and focuses on data and procedures rather than physical infrastructure.
Fairway Danube II has a budget of approximately €70 million and brings together eight organisations from six countries. It includes modernising navigation channel markings, upgrading water level monitoring stations, strengthening hydrographic survey fleets and extending the transnational Wamos system. It will also test flexible infrastructure solutions in shallow sections of the river to address low-water conditions. Dismar focuses on navigation safety along the Lower Danube, real-time data exchange and coordinated operations between Bulgaria and Romania. Meanwhile, two vessels, Timok and Dismar, were named in Ruse on 22 October 2026. One will serve the Bulgarian agency responsible for surveying and maintaining the Danube, while the other will be operated by Romania's Administrația Fluvială a Dunării de Jos (AFDJ) in Galați. Dismar has funding of more than €13.5 million and has already installed over 2,000 shore-based navigation markers and 300 floating markers, supported by a shared monitoring platform.
Antonio Illariuzzi
