on four pillars of future navigation on the Danube

The Kyiv council comes to the conclusions that the present approach of using the Danube for navigation:

Threatens the last intact river stretches, including National Parks, Ramsar sites, world heritage site and Nature 2000 sites.is still based on the old strategy of adjusting the river to the ships and on a rather old fleet.

 We support the inland navigation on the Danube as a potential alternative to road transport under the following conditions:

1. Before starting infrastructure projects on local or national level a Danube wide planning has to be done, including the needs of navigation, socio economics and ecology.  An international Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment (SEA) should be applied with the respect to European landscape convention

1. All navigation projects have to contribute to the objectives of the European Water Framework Directive.  For all shipping and other river engineering projects, there must be clear ecological improvements (e.g. restoration of islands, reconnection of sidearms to the main channel, moving back dykes…)

1. Modernisation of the fleet: A phasing in program of ships adapted to the river should be developed with the effect of avoiding larger infrastructure investments.

1. No new depth requirements beyond existing ones (Danube Commission, AGN) are applied and existing depth and width requirements have to be assessed in terms of ecological and economical requirements.