This statement was made by Vukovar County prefect Bozo Galic at talks with Dutch Ambassador to Croatia Catharina Maria Trooster, who was visiting Vukovar with her associates on Tuesday.
Trooster recalled that a declaration envisaging the re-establishment of the ferry service between Vukovar and Bac, a 1.5 million kuna project financed entirely by the Netherlands, had been signed a year ago, but that it had not been implemented to date due to technical obstacles.
The project is very important because it will not only produce economic effects, but re-establish links between people living on either side of the Danube and either side of the border, Trooster said, describing the failure to re-establish the ferry service as frustrating.
She added that Dutch experts would propose a provisional solution to Croatia and Serbia in order to overcome the existing technical obstacles, but did not elaborate on the solution or the character of the obstacles.
Representatives of the Vukovar city authorities told the Dutch Ambassador that they had already made first steps in the re-establishment of the ferry service, adding that a preliminary design of the future pier on the Danube in Vukovar had been made and that candidates had been selected to train ferry crews.
The ferry service between Vukovar and Bac existed until the beginning of the Homeland War, and it has not been restored since. Last year Vukovar and Bac re-established cross-border cooperation and this summer, for the first time since the war, Vukovar residents were allowed to visit the Vukovar Ada, an islet on the Danube river which before the war was a popular meeting-place.