"There will be no problems for Serbia's passenger and cargo traffic because of Croatia's EU accession on July 1. On the contrary, there will be positive effects in all types of traffic - road, rail, air, water and intermodal," the state secretary at the transport ministry, Miodrag Poledica, told Tanjug news agency on Sunday.
Since Croatia borders Slovenia, haulier and transport companies from Serbia will have one less border to Western Europe countries in road and rail traffic, which means less waiting at the crossings, he said.
Poledica estimated that in terms of rail transport, Serbia would remain oriented towards the Croatian seaport of Rijeka, from which 20-30 per cent of goods for Serbia are transported by rail, but warned about possible changes when it came to big shipping companies.
"There is an unwritten rule that as a country joins the EU, those big ships, which mainly come from China, go to other ports that are not in the EU because of more favourable tariffs, which will give a chance to other Adriatic ports such as Ploce in Bosnia, Bar in Montenegro and Durres in Albania," he said.
Poledica announced that in the weeks ahead Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia would form a joint rail freight company called Kargo 10.
In air traffic, Serbia and Croatia are signatories to the European Common Aviation Area and have seasonal JAT Airways flights from Belgrade to Dubrovnik, Split and Pula, and Croatia Airlines flights from Split.
As for transport along the Danube, which is also the natural border between the two states, Serbia and Croatia will be able to jointly apply for European funds in regulating the part of the river critical for navigation, said Poledica.
The head of the border police department, Nenad Banovic, said there would be no drastic changes to the crossing of the border after July 1, as Croatian citizens would still be able to continue crossing the Serbian border with their ID cards, while Serbian citizens would travel to Croatia with their passports and no additional requirements.
He recalled that Serbia and Croatia had agreements on border crossings and local border traffic dating back to the 1990s and that a working group was set up to upgrade the agreements.