Several important milestones have been reached in the third reporting period of the DAPhNE project such as the elaboration of the first three project outputs.

The series of national workshops on port legislation and state aid schemes which took place in Slovakia (21.06.2018, Bratislava), Croatia (10.05.2018, Karanac), Bulgaria (19.04.2018, Sofia), Hungary (17.04.2018, Budapest) and Romania (27-28.03.2018, Constanta) serve as output which leads to harmonized instruments and strategies for the revival of the Danube ports. All five national workshops on both port legislation and port funding have been conducted by national stakeholders (MPAC, VP, PAV, HFIP, BPICO) according to a common structure and topic discussions established at consortium level and following the contents of the national reports which have been previously elaborated by the involved project partners.

The hosts of the workshops have collected valuable input and feedback coming from the participants that facilitated a know-how transfer between the public sector (ministries, port authorities) and private sector (port associations, port operators, etc.). These findings formed the basis for the elaboration of the port legislation recommendations and state-aid model.

These harmonized and tailored solutions are meant to bridge the gap between the Danube sections and to facilitate a balanced port development. These reliable documents which can be used at national level incorporate all the comments and suggestions of their target group: national public authorities, infrastructure service provider, business support organisation and even higher education and research institutions.

The third DAPhNE output is the Danube Ports Network concept which sets the ground for the launching and the development of the network (DPN) and outlines the tools, activities and services for facilitating the know-how transfer amongst the members of the port community. The Danube Ports Network has emerged in response to a real need to address and reduce the development and innovation gap between Western and Eastern European Danube ports. DPN provides a platform for enhanced, coherent transnational and cross border cooperation among partner organisations at policy, technical and operational level. At the same time, the network offers its partners organisations better channels of engagement with EU institutions and relevant port stakeholders at national, regional and EU level.

Further project outputs will be regularly uploaded in the Library section.

Danube Ports Network brochure can be downloaded from here.