Bosnian Serb Entity and Serbia To Build Bridges

The governments of Serbia and the Serb-dominated entity have agreed series of joint projects, including building three bridges over the river Drina.The governments of Serbia and Republika Srpska, one of the two of Bosnia’s entities, agreed on several projects in the fields of energy, transport, construction and economy, on Tuesday in Banja Luka.

One of the agreed initiatives is to build three bridges over the river Drina, which forms the eastern Bosnian border with Serbia and runs mainly through Republika Srpska. Another initiative was to establish regular flights between Banja Luka and Belgrade.

The two governments agreed they would cooperate in building the system of pipelines for the South Stream which Republika Srpska signed for last week and that they would also work on projects for using the hydro-potential of Drina.

“By projects we mean building four hydro power plants worth between 700 and 800 million euros,” said Aleksandar Dzombic, Prime Minister of Republika Srpska.

Serbia’s Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said that cooperation with Republika Srpska is of the most important strategic interest for his country.

“Our cooperation must be operational and concrete. Our task now, as Prime Ministers, is to ensure the implementation of our conclusions,” Dacic said.

Dacic added that the special relationship between Serbia and Republika Srpska is understandable and should be boosted.

“I do not know how anyone in the world can be against regional cooperation,” Dacic said.

During the meeting it was also agreed that several municipalities from both sides of Drina should link to each other and do projects of reconstruction together; the issue of double citizenship was discussed as well.

The authorities of Republika Srpska, led by Milorad Dodik, the President of the entity and the leader of the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrat, SNSD, is politically closer to Belgrade than Sarajevo with Dodik himself recently saying Belgrade is the capital city to him.

Bosnia’s Republika Srpska and the neighbouring Serbia signed the Agreement on Special Parallel Relations six years ago which defined the economic cooperation but has also a political significance.

RS’s Prime Minister Dzombic said that the joint sessions will be held every six months so that the cooperation is more efficient.