ZAGREB, April 24, 2018 – Bosnia and Herzegovina is against the construction of the Pelješac bridge in Croatia before the two countries settle their outstanding border issues and that has been the country’s position for more than ten years, reads a statement the Chairman of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s collective Presidency Bakir Izetbegović sent the media on Monday, following the signing of a contract on the start of construction work on the Pelješac bridge.
The statement notes that the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2007 adopted a conclusion officially requesting Croatia not to start building the bridge until the outstanding issue of the sea border demarcation and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s access to the high seas was resolved.
Croatia was officially informed of this on several occasions, including by a letter in 2009 by then Presidency Chairman Nebojša Radmanović. That position was upheld in 2017 by the Parliament’s House of Representatives, which asked the Bosnia and Herzegovina Council of Ministers to send Croatia a note asking that all activities regarding the construction of the bridge be stopped until a full consensus was reached, Izetbegović says in the statement.
In late 2017, Croatian authorities received a letter from the European Commission in which they were explicitly warned that before the beginning of the construction work on the bridge, they would have to resolve the dispute with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Izetbegović says. “Despite these warnings, by signing the contract on the construction of the bridge Croatia has continued implementing the contentious project, and Bosnia and Herzegovina will bring this to the attention of the EC which is financing the project, as well as take other steps to protect its rights under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,” says the statement.
The ruling Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA), too, issued a statement, describing the signing of the contract on the Pelješac bridge before the settlement of outstanding border issues as unacceptable, and warned that if construction work proceeded, the country’s authorities could launch proceedings against Croatia before an international court.
“Before the construction work on the bridge starts, the agreement on the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, signed in 1999 by then presidents Alija Izetbegović and Franjo Tuđman, must be ratified,” the party said, noting that Bosnia and Herzegovina must have access to the high seas in line with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The construction of the Pelješac bridge would be legal only after Bosnia and Herzegovina determines that its access to the high seas is in line with the UN convention and agrees to the construction work, the SDA said, calling on the European Commission to join in efforts to solve the dispute or Bosnia and Herzegovina would have to seek protection before an international court.
