Danube opens for shipping

The Danube, one of Europe's key waterways, has been declared open for navigation for the first time since 1999, when Nato bombed bridges in the Yugoslav section of the river.

This fairway is absolutely safe. We have checked it thoroughly and it can be used without difficulty

Danube Commission

The Danube Commission, which oversees shipping on the river, said the remaining war debris would be completely cleared from the river by the middle of next year.

"It appears very likely that traffic on the Danube will recover in 2002 the volumes seen before the conflict," said the Commission in a statement from its Budapest office.

It is expected that about 10,000 ships will use the Danube annually.

The cost to ships, ports and barges from the disruption of the river is thought to have been about one million euros a day.

Danube Research's Edgar Martin told the BBC's World Business Report that it "is very difficult to assess the full economic impact but it is huge, it is absolutely huge."

Most shipping companies on the Danube are state-owned and were able to withstand the river's partial closure, but many smaller companies have gone out of business.

In Romania alone, about 4,500 jobs have been lost, leaving just one thousand people employed in the shipping industry there.

Bombs

The commission also announced a tender for the next phase of the clearance work, which will involve removing up to 14 unexploded bombs from 1999, and more than 100 from World War II.

The European Union has agreed to cover most of the cost, estimated at some $25m.

The Commission said earlier this week, that the central channel in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, had been cleared of debris and marked for safe navigation.

A pontoon bridge is the only crossing at Novi Sad

The five-kilometre channel, which is 80-metres wide and 2.5-metres deep can be used by ships even at low water.

"It is of the same quality as any other channel along the 2,412 km of the navigable Danube," said the Commission's head Hellmuth Strasser.

"This fairway is absolutely safe. We have checked it thoroughly and it can be used without difficulty".

However, most of the debris from the 1999 conflict remains in the river.

Logjam losses

The BBC's Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe says that the fall of Slobodan Milosevic from power a year ago removed an important political obstacle to EU financing of the clearance project.

Until now, ship captains had to navigate at their own risk.

They also complained about the high fees levied by the Yugoslav authorities to open a pontoon bridge in Novi Sad every weekend.

But an agreement had been reached to gradually cut the fees and increase the opening times.

From 1 January the pontoon bridge will open twice a week, and from mid-March, three times a week, making it much easier for captains to plan their trips.

The pontoon bridge is to be removed in about two years' time, after the repair of the main bridge in Novi Sad.

Despite the disruption, traffic through Novi Sad has steadily increased, reaching almost 500 ships in November.