Supported by the European Union, a joint trilateral meeting - Ukraine - the European Commission - Romania - was held regarding coordination of joint efforts aimed at improvement and development of export/import capacities in the Danube cluster. 

The European Commission was represented by the Deputy Director-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE), Maja Bakran Marcich. The Ukrainian delegation was headed by the Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration of Ukraine - Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine, Yurii Vaskov. The Romanian officials present at the joint meeting were: the State Advisor at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, Mihnea Claudiu Drumea, the Secretary of State from the Ministry of Transport Ionel Scrioşteanu. Among other participants were the representatives of the Danube Commission headed by the Director-General of the Secretariat of the Danube Commission, Manfred Seitz. 

Both delegations agreed to carry out joint soundings of the water depths on the Danube following the dredging activities carried out by Ukraine recently. Dep. Min. Vaskov confirmed at that occasion that dredging on the Danube River was not taking place anymore. Furthermore, the question regarding the improvement of navigation, which is of the utmost importance, was considered by both parties, namely the two parties are exploring ways to make the pilotage more efficient on the common Ukrainian-Romanian Danube section in order to increase further the number of ships that could reach the Danube ports.

Development of effective and safe navigation on the Danube is possible only by means of effective and coordinated actions and cooperation with colleagues from the European Commission, Romania and the Danube Commission. 

Nowadays, the Danube ports remain the stable way for the agriculture export. From the full scale invasion, the Danube ports significantly developed their export capacities - handling of goods increased by 3 times, over 17 million tonnes of products were exported. As for the import of the necessary goods - currently this process is fulfilled only by the Danube region ports. 

We wish to remind you that back in March, 2022, the European Commission launched the initiative “Solidarity Lanes” to support Ukraine and create effective logistics for agricultural products export and necessary goods import. One of the key tasks of the program is to facilitate trade routes among countries of the European Union and Ukraine. 

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