ABSTRACT: The text outlines the advantages (but also the problems) raised by the project of a European waterways system based on the Danube. The prospect "is unfeasible" unless "supranational institutions and management instruments" are created, an actual "management authority". The theme of the Danube could be the basis for strengthening the "cultural-political approaches laid down by the Rio Summit"

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 3 November 1993)

The Danube is the axis of a waterways system which, thanks to the connections with the Main and the Rhine, touches or crosses, along the borders, nine countries. This axis, which is entirely navigable, reduces oceanic maritime routes by more than 2.500 Km, from Rotterdam to the Suez Canal. It evident, therefore, that developing the system of the Danube would completely change the trade and the economy of the entire continent. It is a project, however, that can be pursued only if the economic plan (and all its implications, including environmental and ecological ones) is supported with supranational institutions and management instruments. The question can be tackled and solved only by creating a managing Authority endowed with supranational powers. Nonetheless, the opportunity must be seized to consolidate the cultural-political approaches solemnly established by the Rio Summit, and which are based on the safeguard of the environment, on an environmentally sustainable development, on the respect of the cultu

ral differences and of the civil rights of the populations.

The opportunity could be precisely the European waterways system. The 1948 International Convention, which regulated navigation on the Danube, is currently in a crisis. The radical party will propose to establish a "European Community of major rivers and waterways". The model to be referred to will be the one decided for the European Coal and Steel Community, with the objective of making it into the engine for the launch of a process of economic and political integration of Eastern Europe.