Implementation in 2009 (First year)
In 2009 the Commission has organised three regional, awareness-raising Workshops for the ''Iron Curtain Trail'' - a Future EuroVelo Cycling Route, in order to:
- Highlight the increasing importance of cycling tourism, its benefits and regional economic impacts and stress the importance of developing the Iron Curtain Trail as a EuroVelo route.
- Present European best practices of cycling tourism from other EuroVelo routes and model implementations of parts of the Iron Curtain Trail.
- Explore the interest of countries and regions alongside the former Iron Curtain in implementing such a cycling trail and the way forward by identifying feasible/concrete initiatives on how the European Commission could assist its implementation in the years 2010 and 2011.
With regard to the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain in 2009 and in order to promote networking of countries and regions and promote cycling tourism as a means of sustainable tourism, the implementation of the preparatory action "Sustainable tourism" in 2009 focussed on the awareness-building measures:
Workshops
Organization of three Awareness raising Workshops: Warsaw (Poland), Sopron (Hungary), Sofia (Bulgaria) in order to raise awareness of the cycling tourism and development of a cycling trail along the former Iron curtain.
The workshops have been a starting point to build a network of regions which are possibly interested in working together in an EU project (e.g. European Regional Development Fund) in order to implement the cycling trail.
Best practices from other EuroVelo routes and examples of successful implementation of the Iron Curtain Trail at regional level were presented.
- 1st Workshop for the Northern part of the Iron Curtain Trail took place in Warsaw (Poland) on 19 November 2009.
- 2nd Workshop for the Central part of the Iron Curtain Trail took place in Sopron (Hungary) on 9 December 2009.
- 3rd Workshop for the Southern part of the Iron Curtain Trail took place in Sofia (Bulgaria) on 16 March 2010.
- For further information about the project "Iron Curtain Trail", please consult the study of the European Parliament "The European Cycle Route Network Eurovelo
[8 MB] " - More information on the planned routes and stages of the Iron Curtain Trail.
- Presentation giving an overall view of the project" The Iron Curtain Trail – a model for sustainable tourism in Europe [11 MB]
