Large sums of money have been made available to several Croatian cities, both coastal and continental.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 7th of February, 2018, 114.9 million euro has been made available for Zagreb, 46.6 million for Split, 43.7 for Rijeka, 34.6 for Osijek, 22.8 for Zadar, 20.9 for Slavonski Brod and 19.8 for Pula.
On Wednesday, at the Ministry of Regional Development and Funds of the European Union, mayors and representatives of seven Croatian cities under the Operational Program Competitiveness and Cohesion 2014-2020 met and the Agreement on the Implementation of Integrated Territorial Investments (ITU Mechanism) was signed. A total of 303.4 million euro is now available to them.
“We’re continuing with the decentralisation policy of managing and controlling European structural and investment funds in the Republic of Croatia, in order to increase the absorption capacity of available EU funds, and I expect the cities to take advantage of the opportunity that’s now open to them with the signing of the Agreement”, said the Minister of Regional Development and EU Funds, Gabrijela Žalac.
In the area of the specific target of restoration of the brownfield location Zadar will report the project of the Center for Youth and the new Urban Space Center solution for which ITU co-financing amounts to HRK 33,150 million.
As far as Rijeka is concerned, the revitalisation of the Benčić complex is in question, which will be completed through the use of ITU co-finances with 68,206 million kuna. With the aim of enabling a favourable environment for entrepreneurship development, Slavonski Brod can expect from 50 to 85 percent of the total investment of 15,732 million kuna, as can Zadar, for a project belonging to InnoBROD which is otherwise worth 35 million kuna.
For the time being, there are plans to publish multiple grant schemes, and the first next announcement will be for Osijek and the project of renewing Tvrđa, for which 61.52 million kuna comes through ITU co-financing, and Slavonski Brod for the House of Tambura, for which 20.9 million kuna was successfully secured also through ITU co-financing.
Strengthening Cities
In short, the ITU is an EU mechanism which promotes sustainable urban development, the strengthening of the role of cities as the driving force of economies, and strengthening cooperation between local and regional self-government units.
The ITU is made up from a set of activities that can be funded by the European Regional Development Fund, the Cohesion Fund and the Social Fund. Of the total amount, 253.3 million euro comes from the European Regional Development Fund, 50 million euro from the Cohesion Fund, and 42 million euro from the Social Fund.
