The Government of Montenegro has not yet decided whether it will implement the two-decade plan for the construction of the Verige Bridge, which would connect the two shores of the Boka Kotor Bay by traffic, and which is opposed by experts for the protection of cultural assets as well as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). .
They warn that the construction of the bridge would threaten the status of the area as a protected world heritage.
Verige is the narrowest part of the Bay of Kotor, and it is 340 meters from one shore to the other. A ferry has been operating on that stretch for decades, which shortens the journey around the bay by 30 kilometers.
A bridge two decades in the making
The idea of building the Verige bridge dates back to 1999, when the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), led by Milo Đukanović, was in power.
Although it was announced then that the construction of the bridge would begin in 2000, the project is still pending.
In the meantime, in August 2020, in Montenegro, there was a change in the three-decade rule of the DPS.
Have the new authorities abandoned the project of their predecessors?
Draško Lončar from the Ministry of Capital Investments (MKI) of Montenegro did not answer directly when asked by Radio Free Europe (RSE) whether the state has abandoned the construction of the Verige bridge, stating that the project of crossing the Bay of Kotor remains one of the key infrastructure projects.
Lončar points out that it is still too early for any investment decisions.
"For now, activities related to the analysis of variants of the crossing corridor across the Bay of Kotor are ongoing. The state-owned company Monteput has started activities on the development of conceptual solutions and the evaluation of variants, one of which is related to the crossing of the bay in the Veriga zone and the other variant of crossing over the Luštica peninsula", says Lončar.
What are they dealing with in the competent Ministry?
As RFE was told by the MKI, after the conceptual solutions for crossing the Bay of Kotor have been determined and presented, the Government will request the preparation of an assessment of the impact on heritage, in accordance with the guidelines of the International Council for Monuments and Monuments.
"After that, the optimal variant of crossing the Bay of Kotor will be determined, and investment analyzes will be undertaken to create the preconditions for the start of the implementation of this capital infrastructure project, taking into account the preservation of the living and environmental environment that will be affected by this project," says Lončar.
He says that the MKI will respect the position of the profession and support the implementation of the project variant that meets "all prescribed national and international conditions and standards".
The profession warns of the risk of losing UNESCO status
According to the projections and plans made by the former DPS Government, the Verige bridge that would connect the coasts, which are now connected by ferries, would be about a kilometer long, 65 meters high and have four carriageways.
Experts warn that the construction of the bridge would permanently damage the natural and cultural historical area of Kotor, the municipality on whose territory there is the largest number of cultural monuments, a third of the total number of monuments in Montenegro.
the operation of the bridge in the heart of the bay would, as architectural engineer Aleksandra Kapetanović told RSE, threaten its status on the list of UNESCO's protected world heritage.
"There is no doubt that the construction of the bridge, as well as any other major intervention in terms of traffic infrastructure, would threaten the exceptional value of the Bay of Kotor as a whole of inestimable universal importance," says Kapetanović.
Kapetanović says that before any decision is made about the model of traffic connection between the two coasts, a serious and expert study of the impact on heritage must be done.
UNESCO requests that Montenegro abandon the construction of the bridge
Boka Kotorska has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1979.
As UNESCO told RFE/RL, in the conclusions and recommendations of their commission from 2018, it was clearly indicated that the Montenegrin authorities should abandon the construction of the Verige bridge.
"The concept of a bridge across the Verige strait should finally be put aside. Further research should be directed towards a tunnel under the strait or alternative routes that avoid the bridge," the UNESCO commission said in its opinion.
For the first time in 2005, UNESCO pointed out the problematic nature of the construction of the Verige Bridge, and in 2007 requested Montenegro to examine the sustainability of the project with the help of international experts and determine the impact on the cultural and landscape values of that protected area.
Two years later, experts from the University of Aachen in Germany also concluded in the Study on the Visual Impact of the Planned Bridge that "the best solution would be to abandon the construction of the bridge and access roads".
A heritage impact assessment should also be done for the tunnel
Commenting on UNESCO's recommendation to consider building a tunnel instead of a bridge, Aleksandra Kapetanović says that there is no need to hurry with that solution either, since the area where the tunnel would be located also belongs to the protected zone of the natural and culturally historical area of Kotor:
"Although the tunnel would have a smaller visual impact compared to the construction of the bridge, it would also foresee significant works on the access roads as well as on the connection zones. It could also have a negative impact on the landscape and cultural heritage. That's why it would be necessary to do a heritage impact assessment study for the tunnel as well," says Kapetanović.
In March 2017, the former Minister of Transport and Maritime Affairs, Osman Nurković, informed the Government that the justification study proved that the variant of the tunnel through Verigo is "many times less favorable from the spatial and urban planning, technical and economic, traffic and technical, ecological, functional and security aspects".
Who was interested in building the Verige Bridge?
In 2016, the Azerbaijani embassy offered the Government of Montenegro that companies from that country build the Verige bridge and the bypass around Tivat for 175 million euros.
According to the proposal of the official Baku, Montenegro should have financed this work with a loan that Azerbaijan would give at an interest rate of three percent, with a repayment period of 15 years and a grace period of five years.
At the head of the team that negotiated with the Azerbaijanis was the then Minister of Transport Ivan Brajović, and among the members was his later successor in that position, Osman Nurković.
The realization of that arrangement did not occur because the then Government gave up after a negative assessment from the HIA (Heritage Impact Assessment) study on the impact of the construction of the bridge on the natural and cultural-historical area of Kotor.
At the beginning of 2018, representatives of the Belgian company "Besiks" discussed the construction of the bridge on Veriga with former Prime Minister Duško Marković.
Both Israeli and Croatian companies were interested in the construction of the Verige Bridge.
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