19.04.2012
Yesterday, 18 April 2012, took place in Bucharest the signing ceremony of the revised text of the “Regional Arrangement on the Radiocommunication Service for Inland Waterways”, also called the “Bucuresti Arrangement 2012”, agreed between 16 European countries with a view to set common principles and rules for the safe carriage of persons and goods on Inland Waterways in Europe. The signing ceremony was attended by representatives of the following countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, the Netherlands and Romania. The RAINWAT Committee has also authorised the use of a generically called “electronic” signing procedure, which some of the member states have already used or are to use it soon in order to join the Arrangement.
The Regional Arrangement on the Radiocommunication Service for INland WATerways – RAINWAT – is the revised version of the Regional Arrangement on the Radiotelephone Service for Inland Waterways (concluded in Basel, in 2000) and represents a technical regional agreement created in accordance with Article 6 of the Radio Regulations of the International Telecommunication Unionin view of implementing common principles and rules for the safe carriage of persons and goods on Inland Waterways in Europe, as well as in view of setting mandatory policies and rules concerning radiocommunications on these waterways.
The signatory countries of this Arrangement are the Danube and Rhine countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, France, Hungary, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Serbia, the Slovak Republic and Switzerland.
ANCOM is a member of the European Committee RAINWAT, an organisation which permanently harmonises and optimises this Regional Arrangement, implementing common principles and rules to ensure the safe carriage of persons and goods on European waterways.
ANCOM holds the chairmanship of the RAINWAT Committee ever since 2002, the ANCOM representative being subsequently re-elected twice, in 2006 and 2009, due to the outcomes achieved under his coordination and management. His term is to end in 2012.
The organisation of the signing ceremony in Bucharest is an acknowledgement of the almost 10 years of coordination of radiocommunications on the European Inland Waterways carried out by ANCOM. During these years, the Authority has promoted numerous initiatives which contributed to reaching good, harmonised conditions for navigation and radiocommunications and enabled the ship crews to use identical procedures in all the countries they crossed.
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