A feasibility study has concluded that the Peljesac Bridge is the best way to connect the southernmost part of Croatia with the rest of the country, the country’s prime minister said yesterday.
Construction of the bridge will save people having to cross into Bosnia & Herzegovina to travel between Dubrovnik and the Peljesac peninsula.
“Today we are totally right to say that the bridge will be built, that this will start very soon and that the procedure will be completed in the last quarter of this year," said prime minister Zoran Milanovic. He said that the bridge was selected by European Union (EU) authorities as the best among several options proposed. The bridge would be built between the mainland and the Peljesac peninsula to bypass the short stretch of coastline at Neum where Bosnia & Herzegovina has access to the Adriatic Sea. The feasibility study was carried out by the TFP consortium.
"Our desire is to connect Croatia together so that in order to reach Dubrovnik people would not have to travel across the territory of a neighbouring and friendly country where a lot of Croats live, but another country nonetheless, which unfortunately will not become an EU member for a long time to come," said Milanovic.
Croatia's minister of maritime affairs, transport and infrastructure Sinisa Hajdas Doncic said that a tender for its construction was expected to be issued in the last quarter of the year and that the construction would take between two and a half and three years. The cost of the bridge construction would be US$225 million and the cost of the entire project, including the construction of connecting roads, would be US$413 million.
The government expects that the European Union will financially support the project with the maximum 85% and that construction will begin next spring at the earliest.
