Highway from Montenegro to Serbia still just a dream

We will not know until mid-August whether, how and when the construction of a highway in Montenegro will start.

Namely, the period of five months given to the consulting company Scott Wilson to choose the best option for the implementation of this project expires in August.

In order for the consultant to get domestic expert assistance and complete logistics, the Privatization Council has recently formed a special team for the project implementation.

- The consultant should prepare a technical study on options for the construction of the Bar-Boljare highway and an environmental impact assessment until mid-August. Scott Wilson will consider all options from the aspects of space and funding and then suggest the best one, so that we will know what the best option is as early as mid-August - says Angelina Zivkovic, head of aforementioned team and adviser to the Minister of Transport of Montenegro.

She reminds that nearly a year ago the Ministry started preparations for the design of a project plan to be finished by Scott Wilson. In the meantime, the Western Balkans Investment Framework (a program launched by the EU, international financial organizations and donors) granted EUR 0.5 million for the design of two new documents that should show whether and how a highway could be built in Montenegro.

An invitation to bid for the construction of a highway to the Serbian border was announced in October 2008, while the implementation of the "largest Montenegrin investment" was officially started a year later with the ceremonious cutting of the ribbon in Gornje Mrke.

However, a real work did not kick off, which is why an agreement with the best-ranked bidder Konstruktor from Croatia was terminated, and then the negotiations with the Greek-Israeli consortium Actor-Shikun Binui and the Chinese group Poli ended in a failure.