Education and Training Needs in the Field of Logistic Structures and Services in the Lower Danube Region

The approach of the subject concerning the training of specialists in the domain of logistic structures and services in the region of the inferior Danube is enlisted within a larger context, the Strategy of the Danube, but also in a more restrained one, the Program of Cross-Border Cooperation Romania – Bulgaria, 2007-2013. The Strategy of the Danube represents a project initiated in the year 2008 by Germany, Austria and Romania to which subsequently there adhered the other states on the Danube and which became a program of the European Commission. It shall have allotted a budget of 50 milliards euro until the year 2013. It shall be preponderantly addressed to the population in the Danube Basin, which is estimated at 115 millions, following to be developed through cross-border projects. In December 2010 there is foreseen the approval of the Action Plan for the program the Strategy of the Danube by the European Commission. The integration process needs premises and conditions for further development. One of them is the connectivity and it supporting system – the logistics. The problem of the connectivity is one of the pillars of the Danube strategy, which could play an important role in the Lower Danube Macro region’s development. Those problems need different approaches, specialized research and training. The situation of the two countries in the domain of fluvial logistics may be characterized as unsatisfactory in relation to their potential. At the present moment there is a single bridge which connects the two countries (Giurgiu – Ruse) and several travels with the passage boat. The harbour infrastructures are old and inefficient. There are no modern multi-modal platforms or a coherent vision in their design. The transportation on the Danube is insufficiently exploited. As well, the river is not capitalized in other domains, too: agriculture, pisciculture, energy, ecology, tourism, arrangement of the territory, etc.Within a more restrained context, but correlated with the Strategy of the Danube, Romania and Bulgaria cooperate within the Cross-Border Program 2007-2013. Within it, the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest and thee Economic Academy Dimitar Apostolov Tsenov in Svishtov proposed themselves to collaborate in the domain “Cooperation concerning the development of human resources – the joint development of abilities and knowledge”.