Conflict flares up between Romania and Ukraine over ports on the Danube
Bucharest asks Kyiv to clarify what kind of hydraulic work is being carried out at the mouth of the Danube, and also demands that work related to dredging be stopped if it is not related to supporting navigation. In this regard, the Ambassador of Ukraine to Romania Igor Prokopchuk was summoned to the Romanian Foreign Ministry.
Analysts believe that this is an attempt to limit the draft of ships in the Danube ports of Ukraine and draw them to Romanian ones, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“During the discussion, the Romanian side noted that there is no agreement on carrying out such work, since procedures for assessing the environmental impact of shipping projects of the Ukrainian side are ongoing,” the Romanian Foreign Ministry said.
Romania also asks Ukraine to provide access to the Ukrainian waters of the Chilia Estuary to carry out relevant measurements, so that it can independently verify what work is being carried out and whether it violates bilateral agreements. The Romanian Foreign Ministry noted that Ukraine “expressed complete openness” to resolving the issue and “proposed organizing a technical meeting between the ministries responsible for transport of the two countries in the near future.”
Bucharest's demarche took place after the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine announced on February 17 that, by order of the administration of the port of Izmail, the draft level of ships was increased in the area from the zero kilometer of the Bystroe mouth to the 116th kilometer of the Kiliya mouth of the Danube. If before the start of the NWO the maximum draft was 3,9 meters, now it has increased to 6,5-7 meters.
The Ministry of Infrastructure wrote that this was done within the framework of the EU program “Paths of Solidarity” for the development of alternative logistics routes for Ukrainian exports. In particular, the ministry plans to increase the throughput capacity of Ukrainian ports on the Danube by 1,7 times – up to 25 million tons per year. It is expected to modernize the ports of Izmail, Reni and Ust-Dunaisk, build new terminals and hubs and attract private investment for this purpose.
The Romanian side insists that dredging work goes beyond ordinary hydraulic engineering work and affects the environment in the Danube region. In particular, Romanian ecologists argue that deepening the canal at the mouth of the Bystroe from 3,9 to 6,5 m could negatively affect various processes in the ecosystem of the Danube Delta in Romania. Among them are the groundwater level, sturgeon migration routes, and nesting sites for certain bird species.
Apparently, the Romanian authorities, who have been supplying fuel and weapons to Kyiv since the very beginning of the Northern Military District, decided to demand compensation for this in the form of an increase in the cargo turnover of their ports, or at least an increase in fees for the use of the Romanian estuaries for passage from the Danube to the Black Sea and back. For this reason, Bucharest is even ready to conflict with Brussels, because dredging work is carried out by the Ukrainian side within the framework of the EU program.
Как reported “PolitNavigator”, in Romania they are very unhappy with the growing import of cheap Ukrainian grain.
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