Commissioner: No option to connect Croatia's south has been prioritised yet

European Commission Vice President and Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas, who was on an official visit to Croatia on Thursday, said that no solution had yet been selected regarding the best way to connect the south of Croatia with the rest of the country.

As far as I know, no solution has been chosen yet, and no preference has been given to any option. My colleagues from the department for regional development have said that there is still no decision to that effect. It is actually not a transport matter but a matter of the regional development policy, the Commissioner said in Zagreb after his talks with Croatia's Transport and Infrastructure Minister Sinisa Hajdas Doncic.

Earlier in the day, First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign and European Affairs Minister Vesna Pusic said that the feasibility study commissioned by the European Commission had shown that a Peljesac bridge was the best option to connect Croatia's south with the rest of the country.

Minister Hajdas Doncic said that preliminary results, which were still being drawn up and which are due to be completed by the end of June, indicate that "the construction of a Peljesac Bridge will probably be the best option". He, however, stressed, that all this was at a draft stage.

According to Hajdas Doncic, his talks with the European Commissioner covered five areas: Trans-European Networks (TEN-T) and how Croatia can be integrated into TEN-T, EU funding for TEN-T, the European Union's fourth railway legislative package, analyses of the best options to connect the south of Croatia with the rest of the country, and a transport strategy which Croatia is elaborating as a precondition for the country's inclusion into European transport corridors.

Croatia considers the defining of the core network as most important and is also looking at possibilities to integrate Croatia's transport routes into that network, Hajdas Doncic said.

(Hina)



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