Contract signed with Spanish company for construction of bridge on Danube near Backa Palanka - Two traffic lanes, two pedestrian paths, total width 12 meters

The contract for the construction of a bridge on the Danube near Backa Palanka, whose total length will be 1,856.04 meters, was signed at the Government of Serbia. The contract was signed by Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Aleksandra Sofronijevic, Acting Director of the Public Company Roads of Serbia Zoran Drobnjak and Director General of Centunion S.A. Felipe Canet.

The planned facility is part of the state road IB class number 19, which will have a connection with state road 12: Nestin - Erdevik - Kuzmin - state border with Bosnia and Herzegovina (border crossing Sremska Raca).

The bridge will consist of three main parts - an access viaduct on the Backa Palanka side, the main bridge and an access viaduct on the Nestin side. The bridge will have two traffic lanes and two pedestrian paths, with a total width of 12 meters. The total length of the designed section is 3,352.23 meters.

The bridge over the Danube is to be a connection from Backa Palanka to Nestin, which, together with another Fruska Gora village – Vizic, belongs to this municipality and is located in Srem. The construction of this bridge, which would connect the Backa and Srem sides of the Backa Palanka municipality, was announced more than ten years ago in the local parliament. The residents of these two Srem villages can currently only reach Backa Palanka via Croatia, crossing the border at Ilok in Vukovar-Srem County. Their only connection to Backa Palanka is currently the bridge between this city and Ilok. In addition to the ups and downs due to border controls and delays, farmers in particular have a problem, because since Croatia joined the EU they have not been able to transport their products over the bridge between Ilok and Backa Palanka.

Concrete steps towards the implementation of this infrastructure project began with the Spanish in 2023, when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure and the Spanish company Centunion. At that time, it was announced that the new bridge would be 1,915 meters long, with access roads being built on both sides.

By decision of the Government of Serbia, this project was determined as a project of particular importance for the Republic of Serbia. Let us remind that, as the Mayor of Backa Palanka, Branislav Susnica, recently stated, this project was included in the list of priority projects in the Serbian budget for 2026 and the Serbian Government is allocating 15.23 billion dinars for it.

This summer, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic indicated that the contract with the Spanish company Centunion for the construction of a new bridge in Backa Palanka would be worth around EUR 126 million.

In August of this year, the Government of Serbia decided to establish a working group to negotiate and conclude agreements on the implementation of the Project for the construction of a bridge with access roads on the Danube River near Backa Palanka, namely for the bridge that would be built on part of the territory of the cadastral municipality of Nestin and the cadastral municipality of Backa Palanka city.