November the 16th, 2022 - One Croatian project is in the running for the title of best European project as we approach the marking of the anniversary of the Regiostars award.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the European Commission (EC), the executive body of the European Union (EU), will mark the fifteenth anniversary of the establishment of its popular Regiostars award on Thursday in the Portuguese city of Evora. The Regiostars award works to promote projects co-financed by EU funds.

At the ceremony, the European commissioner, Portuguese Elisa Ferreira, will present a special award to one of the projects that has already been awarded since the establishment of "Regiostars" back in 2008. Among the fifteen candidates, who could be publicly voted for until Tuesday on the Regiostars website, is the Croatian project, e-school.

With it, 151 primary and secondary schools across the country received IT equipment and digital teaching aids, which accounted for 10 percent of all schools across the Republic of Croatia. The initiator of this pilot project is CARNET, a public institution that operates in the field of information and communication technology in this country.

Back in pandemic-dominated 2020, this Croatian project received the "Regiostars" award in the Belgian capital of Brussels, based on votes collected over the internet. Previously, CARNET had applied for that tender. With its cohesion policy, the European Commission tries to reduce inequalities between different parts of the EU, so through funds filled with taxpayers' money from 27 member states, it co-finances projects in the maximum amount of 85 percent. The rest is provided by the member states in which the projects themselves take place.

In the elementary school in Velika Ludina, which is around 30 kilometres from Sisak, students solve math problems on tablets and the smart board in the classroom gives the correct answers by itself.

"Just a decade ago, things looked completely different. If the professor wanted to visualise something, he had to be good with chalk and a blackboard, and the students learned exclusively from books," said Croatian journalist Boris Abramovic, the author of a five-minute film about the Croatian project that will be presented in Evora.

"In just seven years, the classic classroom has turned into something that the previous generation only saw in science fiction movies," adds Abramovic about that school in the north of Croatia. Damir Belavic, the professor of mathematics in the school in question in Velika Ludina, says that he himself has an "online notebook".

"Students have online notebooks, so even those who aren't at school can follow what is being done. On top of that, everything remains stored in these notebooks, so it's easy for me to distribute materials to students. I direct them to various links and we do various online exercises,'' he explained.

Classic paper notebooks, however, are still used. Juraj Bilic, the deputy director of CARNET, says that this Croatian project proved to be successful, but that it is not finished yet and more plans are in the works.

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September the 14th, 2022 - Spiralling inflation is causing Croatian projects, some of them long-since planned, to grind to a halt. Originally agreed upon costs have risen, leaving some wanting to shelve their plans.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes, the increase in the prices of energy sources and construction materials is very much spilling over into current Croatian projects dealing with regional waste management centres (WMS). The aforementioned market trends create far more financially difficult conditions for such projects, which will obviously require more generous national funds than were originally planned for.

Otherwise, these centres and everything to do with their construction is defined by the Law on Waste Management and the Waste Management Plan of the Republic of Croatia 2017-2022, they're managed by special companies and owned by regional and local self-government units, i.e. the City of Zagreb.

That said, some of them are clearly stuck in the proverbial mud and their financial structure(s) cannot be closed properly without the intervention of the competent ministries. Such is the case of the Regional Centre for Waste Management (RCGO) in northwestern Croatia - Piskornica, this is a company of the same name whose business is run by director Mladen Ruzman, and it is facing the very real problem of a lack of money.

This is the unfortunate case in spite of the fact that after the first tender, significant interventions were made in the procurement documentation in the repeated public procurement procedure for the design and execution of the works on the construction of RCGO Piskornica.

Speaking more specifically, the estimated value of this project stands at an enormous 346.6 million kuna, and in both tenders announced in less than a year, the bids received were significantly higher than the estimated value of the project. The public opening of bids in the first public procurement procedure was held back in October 2021, and the bids received amounted to approximately 676 and 716 million kuna.

At the opening of bids in September, it can be seen that the bidder Helector S.A  Athens submitted a bid worth 820.5 million kuna, and the Association of Bidders Kostak komunalno in gradbeno podjetje d.d., Krsko i Kostak - graditeljstvo tehnologija sirovine, Zagreb, submitted a bid worth 669.8 million kuna in total.

"Although changes were made in the procurement documentation for the new procedure with an emphasis on those that reduce the conditions of technical and professional abilities in order to open up the market, and on those that reduce the risk for contractors, given the unpredictability of the market and sudden changes in material prices and energy products, the bids received in the repeated procedure are slightly lower than those received in the earlier procedure,'' they stated from the Piskornica Administration.

In addition to the available financial resources, according to the answer received from the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development, the dynamics of the construction of these centres also very much depends on the readiness of the project of each individual centre for waste management, the realisation of which is the responsibility of the commercial company that manages each CGO.

So far, they claim, around 630 million kuna in grants have been spent from European Union (EU) funds for Croatian projects which deal with the preparation and construction of waste management centres, including CGO Mariscina and CGO Kastijun, which have been in operation since back in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

Of the Croatian projects also currently under construction, CGO Bikarac has been constructed and all of the trial work has been completed, while CGO Biljane Donje is in the process of construction and will only be completed next year.

The planned deadline for the construction of the Lucino razdolje CGO, the Babina gora CGO and the Piskornica CGO is until the end of 2026, depending on when the contracts for the works will actually be concluded. The contract for works is expected to be signed soon for CGO Lucina razdolje, while public procurement procedures for the construction of CGO Babina gora and Piskornica are now underway.

Considering the state of the market, the competent ministry has also noted that the funds will be secured when the procurement procedure is successfully completed and the final value of the Croatian projects involved is determined through amendments to the grant award contract.

"Considering the current prices on the market, the fact of the matter is that for certain procurement procedures, offers are being received that now exceed the original estimated value of the procurement, therefore, for price increases on individual projects, which can be proven, growth will be being justified through an increase in the prices of materials and of other input parameters, consider the possibility of securing additional national funds,'' they stated from MINGOR.

For the Management of the Piskornica company, the following activities include holding a meeting with MINGOR and the Ministry of Regional Development and European Union Funds in order to agree and coordinate the next steps in the realisation of the project.

They have stated that they expect this meeting to take place as soon as possible, as well as that the beginning of the project implementation depends on this coordination with the ministries in terms of further implementation regarding the securing of funds above the estimated value, while the deadline for completion is 44 months from the date of signing the contract with the selected bidder.

For more on Croatian projects and ongoing inflationary pressures, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

The Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure announced on Wednesday that five Croatian projects, worth a total of 23.3 million euros, had been approved from the second CEF Transport Call for 2019, of which 19.8m euros would be financed through the CEF Instrument.

As Novac writes on the 30th of July, 2020, the Connecting Europe Facility - CEF is intended to invest in the European Union's infrastructure priorities in the fields of transport, energy and digital technology.

The Coordination Committee of the Connecting Europe Facility - CEF presented the results of the evaluation of the second CEF Transport Call for 2019 last week, under which EU grants are awarded. Five Croatian projects were given the green light - the improvement of railway infrastructure through the establishment of measuring stations for safety and technical controls, the preparation of project documentation for the new vertical shore in the port of Vukovar, the implementation of the SESAR programme 2019 - IOP basis project, safe outdoor freight parking for Žitnjak and the preparation of FAIRway 2 works on the Rhine-Danube corridor.

The grant agreements will be signed for the approved Croatian projects, bringing the total number of projects financed from the CEF Instrument in the transport sector to 46, worth 554 million euros and 446 million euros in EU grants, respectively, according to the competent Ministry.

The project of improving the railway infrastructure through the establishment of stations for safety and technical controls is worth 17.07 million euros, and with it, HŽ infrastructure will introduce a system for the automatic control of railway vehicles in traffic on sections located on the basis TEN-T network.

The project for the preparation of project documentation for the new vertical shore in the port of Vukovar is worth 1.68 million euros, and with it the Port of Vukovar plans to prepare project documentation for the construction of 300 metres of new vertical shoreline in the part where the infrastructure of the shoreline hasn't yet been constructed.

The third approved project is the Implementation of the SESAR Programme 2019 - IOP core project, and it is a joint project of partners from seventeen countries under the coordination of the SESAR Deployment Manager. The project is worth 40 million euros. The Croatian Air Navigation Services and other COOPANS members aren't participating in the allocated funds, but they are participating in the project due to the importance of access to data, according to the Ministry.

The project consists of the first steps for the implementation of Flight Object Interoperability in a number of EU centres, which is a prerequisite for further development and introduction of a system that will ensure interoperability and timely availability of data in airspace, aircraft features and trajectories.

Through the project Safe outdoor freight parking Žitnjak, worth 3.17 million euros, Zagreb Holding plans to build a safe and secure freight parking with all the accompanying facilities to ensure safety and rest, thus contributing to a higher level of road safety.

The fifth approved project, the preparation of FAIRway 2 works on the Rhine-Danube corridor, will be implemented by the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure with partners from Austria and Serbia. Its total value is 3.29 million euros, and the Croatian part stands at 1.38 million euros. The contract envisages the preparation of studies as a basis for future works for the purpose of eliminating bottlenecks on the Danube border route, as part of a broader project of the rehabilitation and maintenance of the Danube waterway and its tributaries.

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