Transport and Infrastructure Minister, Oleg Butkovic, and European Investment Bank (EIB) vice president Teresa Czerwinska on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding to expand cooperation for achieving common goals, notably regarding the absorption of EU funds and aid for transport projects.

The cooperation will focus on enabling investments in railway, maritime infrastructure, inland waterways, road safety, climate resilience, the use of innovative and digital technologies, urban mobility and multi-modal nodes, and roads and road transport, the ministry and the EIB said in a press release.

The agreement will also enable partners to boost local economic development and help Croatia recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and the two devastating earthquakes that hit the country in 2020.

“Our agreement is a foundation upon which the EIB will expand its support for the modernization, sustainable development, digitization and green transition of Croatia’s transport sector, a sector in which we have already invested some €1.2 billion,” said Czerwinska.

“Our joint activities will provide safer, faster, more efficient and cleaner transport solutions for Croatians, and in turn expand business opportunities and improve the quality of life. At the same time, it will accelerate Croatia’s post-earthquake and post-Covid-19 recovery,” she added.

Butkovic said the “long-standing cooperation with the EIB is currently perhaps the most significant for Croatia in the context of the help they provide in the preparation of projects.”

“One of those projects provided an extremely important road connection between Croatian mainland and southern Dalmatia. A part of this project is the Pelješac Bridge, which we will officially open today. Experts from EIB`s advisory service JASPERS have been of crucial help assessing the project in 2016, which was a key step in the European approval procedure for this project of strategic importance for Croatia,” he said at the signing of the memorandum in Dubrovnik.