Minister Butković approved the State Aid policy to support the development of ports by 2020, announcing simplified financing processes.
In the next three years, the Croatian ports open to public traffic and of great local importance will be given the opportunity to further develop and improve thanks to the non-refundable EU funds, reports Poslovni.hr on September 29, 2017. This also means construction sites popping up across the Adriatic where new jobs will be offered to contractors for projects financed from EU funds, which are of great importance for the island population and the local economy.
A fund of EUR 80 million has been secured, which will be used up to 2023, for projects aiming to connect and integrate Croatian islands into a wider transport network as well as overcome key obstacles to achieve local economic growth. The relevant Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure believe that this will be enough, but if needed, they claim they will find additional funds. So far, 28 eligible projects have been identified, for which details are not yet available, and in mid-September the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure developed the State aid for the development of ports open to public transport in the Republic of Croatia for the period 2017-2020. Minister Oleg Butković has also announced the EU bid, which will be followed by the first public call for this type of EU funds aimed at co-financing ports open to public transport.
For the first time, the possibility of using EU funds to finance our ports has opened up, confirms Butković, whose department has established a state aid programme aimed, as they say, at financing infrastructure from EU funds that will contribute to the public interest. Given a large number of potential projects, a unified program has been created so that port administrations should not have to individually prove whether the projects contain unauthorized state support. Under the Operational Programme of Competitiveness and Cohesion 2014 – 2020. (OPKK), within the Specific Goal – Increased accessibility of inhabited islands for their inhabitants, the lowest grant amount per project and per applicant is HRK 1 million and the maximum is HRK 370 million.
An important thing to note is that the public call for tenders will be conceived so that the projects will be evaluated following the order of the project submission. This implies that the funds will be paid first and foremost by the port authorities that are first to respond to the public call, by the system ‘first come- first served’, i.e. those port authorities which have already prepared the project documentation. This includes a concession building permit, a study of project justification, and other supporting documents proving the justification for the investment, as all this is a prerequisite for project implementation costs through EU funds. Out of 28 port authorities that are beneficiaries of funds, only a part of them already have ready-made projects, and supposedly two are just waiting for the EU bid to be published, while some of them are still preparing.
In the process of preparing the project, the Ministry is actively involved, cooperating and assisting port administrations in order to better prepare projects and align them with the priorities of the Program, i.e. with the objectives of OPKK. The public call will be announced by the end of this year at the latest and will last for one year. The projects include the relocation of existing seaports, the modernization of the existing ports and the construction of a new port infrastructure in order to provide maritime transport services. The competent Ministry points out the complex issue of “trying to economically justify investing in the Croatian harbour system and fulfilling the social responsibility that the state has towards the island economy and population, which has, unfortunately, been decreasing.
“One of the reasons for the decline of the population on the islands is the traffic accessibility that greatly affects the quality of life. For this very reason, the development of ports and shipping lines cannot be based on economic justification, but also on the responsibility that the state has towards the island population and their quality of life,” the Ministry states. Over the past 10 years, the state has invested more than EUR 600 million in ports of particular (international) economic interest and more than 450 million in ports open to local and regional public traffic.
In 2017, the Ministry granted HRK 53.5 million for 20 projects in seven counties for construction, renovation and reconstruction of subgrade facilities in ports open to public and local traffic. There are also major investment projects in ports of special (international) economic interest (Rijeka, Zadar, Šibenik, Split, Ploče and Dubrovnik), and this year HRK 306 million has been provided for the implementation of the recently started projects. The Ministry has so far invested more than HRK 43.5m in co-financing part of the ports open to public transport for the acceptance of fishing boats, of which HRK 7m was allocated this year.
In parallel with the public call preparation activities, the National Development Plan for the Development of Coastal Maritime Traffic is being developed, which will include several analyses: analysis of the current status of the fleet that carries out the transport service and other appropriate vessels that can perform the service, analysis of traffic and economic needs in the observed period, analysis of the impact of the coastal maritime transport service on the environment and the analysis of the impact of the state aid policies on maritime traffic. In addition, the National Plan will include economically and traffic-justifiable, energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly measures, i.e. transport technologies, which will establish an acceptable standard of transport connectivity for coastal and island urban units in a reasonable and lasting time.
Translated from Poslovni.hr
