The impetus behind this initiative was the fact that many SECI countries suffered from inadequate road and rail transport infrastructures, including those along the main international transport corridors. These resulted in reduced efficiency and increased costs of national and international transport, as well as in ultimately depressed economic development and competitiveness, and a lower level of integration of SECI countries.

The Project Group on Transport Bottlenecks and Infrastructure held its first meeting in May 27, 1997 in Sofia. The meeting underlined interest in the economic dimensions of the OSCE meetings and the work covered by the European Union, UNECE, BSEC and CEI. Constrained by the limited resources and short-term orientation of SECI, the Transport Bottlenecks Project Group found that the investment and time requirements to improve stretches of road either exceeded SECI’s capacity or were already being addressed by other programs and projects.

At its first meeting, this project group also identified as bottlenecks several of the same border points identified in May 1997 by the Border-Crossing Facilitation group. Based on discussions with the host countries and Project Group participants, it was proposed that the Transport Bottlenecks would take over responsibility for following-up progress on the SECI loan application to the World Bank to finance improvements in the physical infrastructure of border crossing points. Any future analyses to improve land transport would be organized according to the principle that the Transport Bottlenecks project group addresses physical infrastructure requirements, while the Border-Crossing Facilitation Project Group focuses on simplifying procedures, rationalizing regulatory requirements and operational and economic aspects.

The Working Group on Shuttle Trains evolved out of the transport project group’s need to focus specifically on how to address time delays for both freight and passenger trains. The group held four meetings since November 1998, which were organized largely by the Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ). To date, current activities have included analysis of the schedules, timetables and reasons for train delays along the Budapest-Bucharest-Sofia-Thessaloniki/Istanbul (Transbalkan) and the Bucharest-Istanbul (Bosphorus) routes. Clearly learned was the essential need for advanced information on the goods transported and composition of the train for the acceleration of border procedures in international rail traffic. In this respect, upgrading border crossing infrastructure, improvement of operational information exchange between railway and border authorities, development of new technologies for handling of trains were among some of the issues and needs identified.

A general overview of regional infrastructure development activities in South East Europe is available here. A selection of meeting reports and other information related to the transport infrastructure development projects undertaken under SECI is available in the meetings proceedings section of our website.