Meeting with representative of the Delegation of European Commission to the Republic of Croatia

Meeting with representative of the Delegation of European Commission to the Republic of Croatia, Ms. Mojca Starc was held on September 28 2006 in premises of the Sava Commission Secretariat. Among else, the representatives of the Secretariat discussed with Ms. Starc the possibilities of the Sava Commission in context of overall management of the projects in the Sava River Basin and provision of financial assets, which would be used for development of the basin.

Concluded was that the Sava Commission was the international commission acting in the area of four countries, and, therefore, there were following two possibilities in regard to the access to projects and coordination of their financing:

   a) The member countries could formulate and prepare projects within their own assets (within the countries, to allocate certain assets from the national programs), and their next step would be to give over the management and administration of projects to the Sava Commission. E.g. in principle the programs not having the international component would have to be candidated and prepared in each country (and assets should be provided in all four countries). The Sava Commission would later on run four projects from all four countries as the unique project, but the activities related to financing would be managed within the four countries and would be in accordance with proceedings and conditions of the project management depending on respective programs (Cards, IPO, Structural Funds, etc.)
   b) The Sava Commission could participate in tenders announced at the member countries, with condition that the programs have the trans-boundary component.
Other part of conversation referred to possibility of co-financing the Sava Commission by the European Commission within the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive in the region consisted of the EU member countries, as well as the other countries being in different stages of the process on joining the EU. The meeting ended by defining the necessary steps and actions in order to realize the meeting conclusions within the Sava Commission and on the whole area of the Sava River Basin.