Croatia

Three Croatian companies will build a highway in Montenegro that will cost EUR 2.94 bn.

A Croatian consortium led by the Split company Konstruktor tendered the winning bid for 188 kilometres of highway between Bar and Boljare. Construction companies Tehnika and IGH are the other members of the consortium.

The consortium’s main competitors were Austrian Strabag, Greek Aktor and Israeli Construction and Housing.

Slovenia is in favor of mediation to help resolve the border crisis with Croatia, something that the European Commission expects Croatian support for too.

Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor said, after meeting with party leaders, that Slovenia was united and accepted the proposed European Commission mediation to help resolve the border dispute with Croatia.

“The European Commission proposal for mediation is fundamentally acceptable and we expect the Croatian government to make the same decision next week,” Pahor said, adding that this would enable talks to begin about the elements of the mediation, so that it could start as soon as possible.

Enlargement is EU's most positive policy, but Macedonia and Western Balkan countries at the moment need to foresee the entire process and to frame it in a precise timetable as it was done with the countries that joined EU in 2004 and 2007, stressed Vice Prime Minister Ivica Bocevski in his address at Prague conference on topic "EU Enlargement - Five Years After".

The period of crisis, Bocevski added, requires bold decisions and courageous leaders at both national and European level.