There are no legal possibilities for the signing of a concession contract.
As Dubrovacki Dnevnik reports on the 11th of September, 2017, the Turkish-French consortium Dubrovnik International Cruise Port Investment (DICPI) has lost out on the possibility of building a terminal in Gruž, at least until the next tender takes place, which will, as things now stand, be repeated.
According to the Management Board of the Port of Dubrovnik, there are no legal possibilities for the signing of a concession agreement with them. It is the legal opinion of the law firm Uskoković and its partners, the Turkish-French consortium, cannot, and in actual fact is not allowed to sign the contract because by the 14th of July last year, the date upon which the deadline was agreed, they did not agree to the final version of the contract. This resulted in an automatic termination of the pre-contract process and consequently resulted in the termination of the continuation of the concession procedure.
Naturally, the DICPI disagrees with the termination of the pre-contract, and has threatened with arbitration, however, HDZ believes that even if an arbitration is lost, the damage would be considerably lower than that which would have occurred had construction by the French-Turkish consortium taken place under the conditions which had been arranged.
An intense media campaign is being held by the DICPI in an attempt to convince the public of their honest intentions and the benefits that citizens will gain from their investment, which has been subject to endless talk and even more controversy in Dubrovnik and beyond since the very beginning of the saga.
In the coming days, it will be very interesting to see whether or not the Ministry, which is under the control of HDZ, is on the side of the concessionaire once again, because if that happens, it would mean that in the case of the Gruž terminal, HDZ on the national level is against HDZ on a local level because Marko Potrebica, as a member of the Governing Council, has repeatedly stated that he is entirely opposed to such an investment.
However, the aforementioned law office believes that any decision from the Ministry has no power to change the legal position of the investor and the Management Board of the Port Authority, and that makes things very clear – the concession contract with the French-Turkish consortium should be terminated.
DICPI once mentioned that it would invest 95 million euros in the project, a number which many considered to be over the top.
It is highly likely that in the future, a new tender for the construction of a terminal in Gruž will be announced, we hope for much better conditions for Dubrovnik and its citizens than this one offered, and the fact that the terminal should be partly constructed with public money, where the City of Dubrovnik has almost half the value of the shares, should be respected.
Translated from Dubrovacki Dnevnik
