Croatia has signed up to an initiative for an Adriatic-Ionian railway corridor linking its ports with Italy, Slovenia, the Western Balkans and Greece, as governments across the region push ahead with rail projects.
The line targets a region assessed in a major Greenpeace report to have the poorest cross-border rail connections in Europe. The situation is worst in the six non-EU Balkan countries — Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia — but the study identified “huge gaps” in rail connectivity across the broader Central and Southeast Europe region.
State Secretary at Croatia’s Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure Zarko Tusek signed the initiative at a conference in Zagreb on October 2, together with MEP Nikolina Brnjac, Zadar County prefect Josip Bilaver and representatives of other coastal counties, the ministry said. The corridor would run from Trieste and Koper through Rijeka, Zadar, Sibenik, Split and Ploce to Bar in Montenegro, Durres in Albania and Greek ports, connecting EU and non-EU countries.
“Without this railway network, there is no possibility of strengthening Croatian ports,” Brnjac said. The next step is a meeting with the governments of the countries along the route, followed by a conference in the European Parliament early next year and a final event in Brussels, where the initiative would be handed to EU Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism Apostolos Tzitzikostas.
The region it would cross is still struggling to finish the lines already on the books. Western Balkan countries are unlikely to complete their sections of the EU’s core transport network by the 2030 target, the European Court of Auditors said in a June report, finding that EU-backed projects typically started 17 months late and many were delayed by more than two years. In one case a railway line was in worse condition when auditors visited than before the project began; another ended abruptly at a national border.
One electrified line to the coast
Croatia’s own network also shows the scale of the problem. Of the 429 km of railway between Zagreb and Split, only the 103 km between Zagreb and Ostarije is electrified, which is why the country’s first hybrid electro-diesel train, built by Koncar, entered service on the route on September 15. It is the first of six such trains being bought by state-owned HZ Passenger Transport.
Admittedly, investment is picking up. Croatia signed contracts on October 1 with India’s Afcons Infrastructure to rebuild and double-track the Dugo Selo-Novska line, although the government did not disclose their value. It has also raised its support for HZ Passenger Transport to €1.1bn through 2028, adding €509.2mn for 2026-2028 after the original allocation ran out. Tusek said study documentation was being prepared for a rail tunnel under Mount Ucka to link Istria’s isolated network to the rest of Croatia, and that a tender for the Ucka project and the “lowland railway” connecting Rijeka would be announced next year. The government sees the lowland line between Zagreb and Rijeka as key to making Rijeka a gateway to Central Europe for container traffic.
Slovenia and Serbia finish their flagships
Slovenia opened its second track between Divaca and Koper in March, five years after construction began. The 27.1-km line, which cost more than €1.1bn including €389.9mn in EU grants, raises capacity on the main link to the Port of Koper from 98 trains a day to 212, and is part of a €3.6bn programme to modernise the country’s railways.
The China-built Budapest-Belgrade railway, a flagship of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative costing more than €2.8bn, had its final section inaugurated in February and is designed to cut travel between the two capitals from about eight hours to three and a half. Hungary’s new government under Prime Minister Peter Magyar has since ordered a review of the project after Transport Minister David Vitezy said signalling and traffic management systems were not yet fully operational.
On a smaller scale, some more old links are returning: a daily passenger service between Belgrade and Zvornik in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska is due to resume in December after years of suspension.
North Macedonia signed a €499mn financing package in August for the third phase of its eastern line on Corridor VIII towards Bulgaria, including a €149mn EU grant through the Western Balkans Investment Framework and loans of €175mn each from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The government also plans a €2bn high-speed line from the Serbian border to the Greek border by 2031.
Montenegro has put together funding to rebuild the 39-km Golubovci-Bar section linking the Port of Bar with Podgorica and the line to Serbia: €112.6mn in EU grants, a €63mn EIB loan and a €50mn EBRD loan approved on October 1. The work covers track, three stations, 11 bridges and signalling.
Albania is electrifying and rebuilding the 34-km line between its main port of Durres and Rrogozhine, backed by a €30mn EBRD loan, a €30mn EIB loan and €60mn in EU grants. Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti has made the Gjakova-Shkodra railway, part of a planned link between Pristina and Durres estimated at around €700mn, a priority for his government.
In Bosnia, rail operators depend heavily on heavy industry, which is shrinking. The Federation’s railway company said the closure of the Lukavac coke plant, which accounted for almost 30% of its freight revenue, and the halt at the Zenica steelworks cut its first-half revenues by BAM9.9mn (€5.1mn) year on year.
Taken one at a time, the projects are modest: a few dozen kilometres of rebuilt track here, a second line there. The Adriatic-Ionian initiative is an attempt to tie them into a single route along the coast, but it will need the same EU grants and development-bank loans that are already stretched across the region, and governments that the auditors say have struggled to deliver on time.
Source: www.intellinews.com
