Croatia became the 28th member of the European Union on 1 July, and one of its first tasks is to make good use of the large sums of money available from the EU’s structural funds. As has happened in the past, for example in Portugal and Spain, this money gives a country an opportunity to make radical improvements in public infrastructure that will make a real difference to economic competitiveness and the quality of life.  

Unfortunately, there seems to be pressure being put by Croatia on the European Commission to accept one very expensive and dubious project – a bridge costing a reputed several hundred million euros that would allow people to avoid crossing a 9km stretch of Bosnian land that cuts into the Croatian Dalmatian coastline, the so-called Neum corridor.

This bizarre fragment of political geography has, of course, a political history. In 1399, the Dubrovnik Republic (Ragusa) acquired Neum from Bosnia. If it had stayed that way there would be no problem today. However, in 1699 Dubrovnik relinquished this small territory to the Ottoman Empire, in order to give the Turkish army access to the sea. Neum was under Ottoman control until 1878 when it came under Austro-Hungarian rule, joining the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and so onto post-war Yugoslavia and Bosnian independence in 1992.

Croatia’s accession to the EU is a step towards the goal of integrating the whole of the Balkans into the EU. The only problem is that Bosnia’s accession is going to take many more years, and in the meantime Croatia wants to join the schengen area of passport-free travel as soon as possible.

There have been bilateral negotiations between Bosnia and Croatia, with the participation of the European Commission, to try and find an amicable solution to the Neum problem. One idea was for the 9km highway to become temporarily a transport corridor – ie, with no entry or exit points on Bosnian territory. Bosnian traffic wishing to use the highway could join at the Bosnian-Croatian border rather than solely on Bosnian land. This would require a friendly political gesture by Bosnia to be enshrined in an agreement.

Bosnia, for its part, would like to have improved access to the port of Ploce, which is about 25km up the coast from Neum, and serves as Bosnia’s main sea port. However, no agreement has been forthcoming.

As a result there is a search for an alternative solution. The front-runner seems to be a bridge from the Croatian coastline north of Neum to the Croatian peninsula of Peljesac, whose southern point joins the Croatian coast south of Neum. The bridge would therefore bypass Neum. Such a bridge would be extremely expensive, partly because it would have to be high enough to allow large ships to pass under it in case Bosnia chooses to build a new port at Neum.

The European Commission has set in motion a feasibility study, with a report expected in the next month or so. It seems that there are different opinions within the Commission, between those who are in favour of the bridge and those who think the bridge would be a waste of money.

It would be good if the feasibility study included details of what the money could be spent on in Croatia and Bosnia instead of the bridge. If this does not happen, the European Parliament should request such information before any decision is taken.  

In our view the transport corridor option should be chosen. The idea that this would constitute a security risk for the schengen area is not plausible. Cars and trucks would not be able to gain access to the corridor. As for pedestrians wishing to cross from Bosnia into Croatia, including would-be migrants and criminals, surely the last thing they would contemplate would be to walk along the highway, when there are many hundreds of kilometres of unprotected frontier between Bosnia and Croatia to choose from.   

As for the temporary problem for Bosnia that it would be ceding an element of national sovereignty until it joins the EU, it should be compensated financially.

Alternatively, how about Europe spends hundreds of millions of euros on what might aptly be called “The Ottoman Empire bypass bridge”?

The European Commission is not immune to being drawn into endorsing unfortunate proposals, the latest one having been the now-withdrawn olive oil packaging fiasco. Now is not a good time for another mistake.

Michael Emerson is an associate senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels.