The Chairperson of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Borjana Krišto, and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia, Andrej Plenković, officially signed the agreement on the construction of the Southern Interconnection gas pipeline between the two countries in Dubrovnik today.
The signing took place at around 1 am on the sidelines of the Three Seas Initiative Summit, after all the necessary procedures were completed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in record time.
Namely, this morning, the members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, immediately after the session of the Council of Ministers, adopted the proposal for this strategically important agreement, which provided all the necessary approvals for its formal signing.
After Krišto and Plenković signed their signatures today, the process is returning to the legislative framework. In order for the agreement to become fully operational, it must be approved and ratified by both houses of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the Government of the Republic of Croatia.
Although the political procedures and the adoption of the necessary measures for the construction of this gas pipeline have been accelerated to the maximum, the implementation on the ground is faced with one of the greatest political and legal challenges in Bosnia and Herzegovina – the issue of state property.
The route the pipeline is supposed to take also includes state property that is currently under a ban on disposal, pending a final agreement on this issue.
This topic has been an unsolvable enigma for domestic politicians for years, and reaching a final solution on state property is not only a prerequisite for infrastructure projects like this, but also one of the key issues for the functionality and future of the state itself.
If legal and political obstacles are successfully overcome, the construction of the “Southern Interconnection” should, according to the plan, be completed by 2028.
This project also entails major changes in the energy sector of our country. It is planned that within seven years after the completion of the pipeline construction, three large gas power plants will also be built, which will be located in Kakanj, Mostar and Tuzla.
