Introduction

This article is about a Transport Community with the Western Balkans.  For the European Commission it is important to improve transport connections between the European Union and its neighbouring countries. One way of improving this is by implementing a Transport Community Treaty. The first proposal of this treaty has been made with the Western Balkans.

Original article by Theodore Koumelis (Thursday, March 06, 2008)

Essay by Gemma Koenders
Master in Tourism Destination Management student 2008/2009

For the European Commission it is important to improve transport connections between the European Union and its neighbouring regions. Therefore the idea of a Transport Community Treaty was established. The first proposal of this treaty has been made with the Western Balkans.  Jacque Barrot who is the Vice-President in charge of transport perceives this as an important factor as there are advantages for different actors involved.

“Transport connections are key to connecting people and companies. This must be an integral part of our policies with regard to our neighbours. I am particularly pleased that following our exploratory talks with the Western Balkan countries, we can now propose to establish a transport community, which will help to interconnect infrastructures and align rules for safety, environment and services. Such transport Community is a concrete way of fostering regional cooperation, stability and peace in the true spirit of Jean Monnet”, said Vice-President in charge of transport, Jacques Barrot.

The Transport Community Treaty has several objectives:

  1. it wants to focus on the market for infrastructure and land, waterways and maritime transport, so the focus on transport in its broad sense
  2. its main attention is to combine relevant aspects of the Western Balkan legislation with its own. In my opinion by doing this countries may be more willing to implement this treaty
  3. to improve legal security for operators and investors in the transport sector. This could result in investments from different companies and would lead eventually to economic developments and globalization in other words the destination will be able to make a lot of profits
  4. common rules should be used for improving the transport market

If the Western Balkans implement this Community treaty this would have a major impact on the transportation connection between the destination and the European Union. It becomes easier to travel to the Western Balkans so the destination is better accessible and boundaries become less visible.

This treaty does not only has advantages for the people, and transport users as accession is more simple but also for companies just like the Vice President stated above. It is very likely, that when this treaty is finally implemented, that international companies are going to invest in the Western Balkans. So as a result of better transport connections globalization comes into the picture.

In the article “Managing Globalization” in the book Tourism Management Dynamics (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2006) Frank Go and Erik van ‘t Klooster claim that “the few who crossed borders and connected the world for various purposes gave way to the industrialization era, transnational trade and mass-tourism on an unprecedented scale”. It is to conclude that by implementing the Community Treaty globalisation becomes a major aspect in the Western Balkans and this again will influence the international trade, the amount of tourists travelling to the destination.