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Infrastructure : Transgreen, a 2.48-million-euro project to build green transport infrastructure in the Carpathian area
Romania has become a partner in the Transgreen project, an initiative financed by about 2.48 million euro, which aims to develop in the Carpathians motorway and railway infrastructure that will have a low impact on the environment, according to WWF-Romania, a project partner organisation.
The Transgreen project officially started on January 1, 2017 and is due to be completed on June 30, 2019.
"The development of the network of highways and railways connecting Romania's key points and, furthermore, Romania with the rest of Europe is an ongoing process. The development plans for these types of 'large infrastructure' includes crossing the Carpathians, and, implicitly, the fragmentation and disturbance of valuable ecosystems included in protected natural areas such as Natura 2000 sites of European interest. In order to prevent and mitigate these pressures and threats to nature, the Transgreen project aims to develop solutions to contribute to the creation of a transport network with the lowest impact on the environment and that will be used to drive safely in Romania, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary," WWF-Romania said.
In the stakeholders' view, Transgreen brings together organisations directly involved in the development of large infrastructure and nature conservation plans: national public authorities (such as the Ministry of Transport and the Romanian Ministry of the Environment) along with regional organisations, international organisations, research centres and universities, highway companies, environmental organisations.
"These institutions have the capacity, the experience and the authority to develop concrete solutions to reduce the impact on the environment and to propose appropriate green infrastructure elements, with particular attention to the ecological corridors that secure the possibility of the most vulnerable species to motorway and railway impact being able to move around: large carnivores (the brown bear, wolf and lynx) and certain herbivorous species.
The packages of concrete measures for large infrastructure planning, construction, management and monitoring will focus on four pilot projects, namely the Tirgu Mures — Iasi motorway (Romania); the Arad (Radna) — Deva (Romania) railway; the Miskolc (Hungary) — Kosice (Slovakia) — Uzhgorod (Ukraine) motorway, Beskydy (Czech Republic and Slovakia) motorway. In addition, the project is designed to create integrated infrastructure project planning approaches and promoting them for integration with public policies in the region.
The Transgreen project has a budget of approximately 2.48 million euro, of which 2.109 million euro is a contribution from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The funding is implemented under the Danube Transnational Programme, a successor of the South-East Europe Trans-European Cooperation Programme.
According to WWF-Romania, this programme funds projects to improve public policies and institutional co-operation, implemented under an extended transnational partnership, Priority Axis 3 — Connectivity in the Danube Region.