Presenting the project in Zagreb on Wednesday, a ministerial advisor with the Austrian Economy and Labour Ministry, Gerhard Burian, said that the project was worth 2.2 million euros. Of that amount, 750,000 euros has been ensured by the European Development Fund, 760,000 euros by the Austrian federal ministries and the provinces of Styria and Carinthia, while Croatia is expected to secure 750,000 euros. Hungary will contribute 24,000 euros.
The project covers an area of 41,238 square kilometres of the Drava River basin along the Croatian-Hungarian border, with Croatia covering 7,089 square kilometres of that area, which is populated by 920,000 people.
The project, which refers to water management and waste and waste water disposal, will be implemented in four Croatian counties - Krapina-Zagorje, Koprivnica-Krizevci, Medjimurje and Varazdin counties.
Nedo Cepic of the Croatian Ministry of the Sea, Tourism, Transport and Development, said that under European directives Croatia was expected to invest around five billion euros into ecological communal infrastructure projects in the next 10 to 15 years.
It is in this area that the EU pre-accession funds are the highest, and the chapter on environmental protection and waste management is one of the most extensive chapters in the process of pre-accession talks, Cepic said.
This was confirmed by Oskar Benedikt of the European Commission's Delegation in Zagreb, who said that the EU supported the project for two reasons - for the sake of transnational cooperation and the fact that sizeable funds were needed to clean the polluted areas of the Drava River basin.