The DANTE project which facilitates the reduction of time losses and unnecessary financial burden to IWT caused by ineffective administrative regulations & processes is progressing very well. Officially started on 1 January 2017, the DANTE consortium consisting of public authorities, consulting companies, universities and NGOs from 10 European countries is making important steps towards the achievement of the project’s goals. 

On the project management level, the DANTE Partnership has reached all milestones setting up the internal organisational and management framework conditions as well as initiated the setup of the stakeholder management database which has already been used for the organisation of the national working table meetings.

The work package dealing with communication and dissemination activities provided the framework to address the target groups in a coordinated manner by means of the project communication plan, project templates, promotional materials as well as the first project newsletter.

The activities of the work package dedicated to barrier identification have produced the first project output: the transnational electronic IWT barrier reporting tool which can be reached at: https://www.prodanube.eu/administrativebarriers. Setting up this tool involved a lot of work and coordination which implied i.a. elaborating the tool specification and the working methodology, contracting an IT developer to develop the reporting tool and the barrier database, coordinating the interface translations. The interface of the tool is available in eight languages (EN, DE, SK, HU, RS, HR, RO, BG). The first inputs of the database provided a very good basis for the preparation of the six national working table meetings which took place between April and July 2017.

When focusing on the analysis of procedures, the work started with the first round of national working table meeting which took place in six Danube countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria). They gave a valuable insight on the key problems that need to be tackled and the fields in which administration and reporting in IWT should be simplified, harmonised and digitalised. The next step is to elaborate country reports on procedures and processes in the Danube IWT at national level which will then be further consolidated in order to facilitate the drawing of guidelines and recommendations on the Danube region level.

The Strategy & Capitalization work package has been started by means of addressing PDI´s network with the relevant information and the preparation of the first transnational workshop that will be organised in Budapest on 24 October 2017 and having continuous contacts with EUSDR PA1a and PA11.

The DANTE partnership was extended with a new project partner, HUNPASS, the Hungarian Federation of Passenger Fleet Operators which took over the roles of the former partner MAHOSZ – Hungarian Shipping Federation. Changes have also been recorded as well as with regard to the associated strategic partners, where Pro Danube Serbia has joined the DANTE Team.

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