The general aim of the Project was intended to give a contribution to the selection of those links, in the Balkan infrastructure network, potentially more relevant for the strengthening of economic cooperation between Italy (South regions in particular) and Eastern Adriatic Countries. The strategic aim of the Project was to facilitate the cooperation between the main Italian decision-makers on transport and development policies by the identification of a set of infrastructure projects.

The co-operation with CERPEM was manly focused on development of Mezzogiorno’s regions analysis, particularly on two topics:

• Balkan area development scenarios focused on the economic and political dimensions and the perspectives for the relations with Italy and the EU;
• Main gaps of transport network (links) in/toward the Balkan area. These gaps are a constraint to trade and economic cooperation development between the area and Italian regions, particularly South-Italy’s regions. The negative effect on bilateral trade flows between the Italian regions and Balkan countries was estimated by means of gravitational models.

The second phase of the project was mainly aimed at the identification of the priorities and actions to be implemented in the short and medium term, in order to improve the Italian strategy and its diversification regarding both prevailing transport modes in the concerned areas and their own specific issues.

Type of service

Co-ordination of the project activities and partnership.

Data collecting and data base setting for transport flows and Balkan infrastructure network and projects.

Technical Assistance to the Ministry of Economy and Finance in co-operation with CERPEM.

Organisation of intermediate and final project conferences in Rome.

Overall project management and implementation.