Sustainable Tourism Law

698 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW Connecting the Danube Region – This pillar focuses on transport, energy and culture/tourism issues. The overall objective is to improve connectivity within the Danube Region and with the rest of Europe, in terms of infrastructures, systems and people. It is focused on three Priority Areas: (1) To improve mobility and multimodality (covering road, rail and air links as well as inland waterways) – there is general agreement that good, inter-linked and sustainable transport systems are important for the region. The coordinated improvement of transport on the basis of holistic and integrated development concepts accompanied by the development and use of appropriate technical, eco-sustainable solutions can increase the attractiveness of the Danube river as a cost- -effective corridor for effectively delivering regional sustainable development and mobility 41 . (2) Toencouragemoresustainableenergy (coveringenergy infrastructure, markets and clean energy) – by reduction of energy consumption, increase of renewable energy, modernisation of the transport sector to make it more efficient and environmentally friendly (e.g. by promoting multimodality), and promotion of “green” tourism. In this regard, all the countries of the Danube Region have policies to support the use of renewable energies. Many have large natural potential to develop renewables (especially solar and wind). They also have potential for improvement regarding energy efficiency in residential buildings, and district heating. The Directive on renewable energy (2009/28/EC) sets ambitious targets for all Member States in order to ensure that the EU will reach a 20% share of energy from renewable sources by 2020 and a 10% share of renewable energy specifically in the transport sector. Apart from Renewable energy directive, there are several EU policies supporting energy, in particular the Trans European Energy Networks programme (TEN-E), the European Energy Programme for Recovery, 41 Sustainable mobility overall is a clear objective of Europe 2020, as well as the common European transport policy. Given that inland navigation has a relatively low environmental impact (it emits 3.5 times less CO2 per ton-kilometre than trucks) it is an important mode of transport. Linked by the Main-Danube canal, the Rhine and the Danube are directly connecting eleven countries from the North Sea to the Black Sea over a length of 3,500 km. However, the development of waterways as navigation corridors must go hand in hand with the creation of modern and efficient intermodal ports to integrate navigation with rail and road. See: EUSDR Action Plan, p. 9. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docoffic/official/communic/danube/action_plan_ danube.pdf.