The round table was organised by Croatian European Parliament member Valter Flego (IDS/Renew).
In December 2023 the Council and the European Parliament reached an agreement to revise the Regulation on TEN-T, the European network of railways, roads, inland navigation routes and seaports. The agreement is now expected to be formally adopted by both the Council and the EP, after which the regulation will go into force.
Under the previous regulation, Croatia was covered by the Mediterranean corridor, which includes a rail-road route from Rijeka via Zagreb to the border with Hungary and Slovenia and the river corridor Rhine-Danube (sections of the Danube and Sava rivers, with the river ports of Vukovar and Slavonski Brod).
Under the revised regulation, Croatia is part of two additional corridors - the Baltic - Adriatic corridor and the Western Balkans - Eastern Mediterranean corridor. The new regulation includes, as part of European corridors, the seaports of Split and Ploče, regional inland railways, airports and other infrastructure.
Croatia thus has the opportunity to use funds under the Connecting Europe Facility, for which €25.8 billion is intended in the current programming period until 2027.
Flego, who in the EP actively participated in the harmonisation of the final text of the regulation, says that already in July calls would be published to which Croatian ports, port authorities, railways and the transport ministry will be able to apply.
"They need to have a lot of eligible projects to apply for European funds. This does not concern only railways and roads, but also investments in seaports, embankments, infrastructure, safety equipment. I have been in touch with them the whole time and I can say that this time I am optimistic," he said.
Flego commended all Croatian deputies in the European Parliament for supporting his amendments in the process of harmonisation of the EP's position.
Attending the round table were EC representatives, several EP members, as well as representatives of the ports of Rijeka, Split, Ploče, Pula and Koper.
Rijeka Gateway Project Management Board member Tomislav Žunić said that a modern railway was a precondition for the further development of ports.
Split Port director Filip Rogošić, who is the president of the Association of Ports, Shipping Companies and Shipping Agents at the Croatian Chamber of Economy, said that the cost of transport on the Lika railway linking Zagreb and Split was three times higher than it would be had the railway been electrified.
"That is why we have thousands of trucks on our highways," he said, adding that a diesel locomotive consumes 10,000 litres of fuel for a return trip along the Zagreb-Split railway. "No port can develop without the railway," he said.
Pula Port director Tatiana Zanini Gavranić said that the port of Pula was a good example showing that a port cannot function without a railway. Even though there are railway tracks in the port, they have long been out of use, she said.
Maja Bakran, Deputy Director-General for General Mobility and Transport, said the revised TEN-T regulation for the first time included regions outside the European Union, which, she said, had not been an easy thing to accomplish. That way, the port of Ploče was connected by Corridor Vc via Bosnia and Herzegovina with the region of Slavonia and further on with other EU member countries.