Balkans states agree to improve EU-Turkey rail transport

(BELGRADE) - Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia on Friday signed an agreement to improve railway transport from EU states to Turkey across the three Balkan nations, Beta news agency reported.

The three states, once joined in the Yugoslav federation, decided to create a joint rail company that would work on modernising the railway and enable faster transport across their territories.

About 90 percent of the rail traffic between Germany and Turkey currently goes through Hungary, while only 10 percent goes through the corridor crossing Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, Serbian Transport Minister Milutin Mrkonjic said.

"The aim of this new company is to attract more trains and to ensure higher speeds so (the journey can be made in) 35 hours from Ljubljana to Istanbul instead of 60 hours" as it is now for the some 1,500-kilometer (900-mile) long railway, Mrkonjic was quoted by Beta as saying.

The company is expected to start working on September 1 and will be run by Slovenia as the only EU member among the three, but will employ representatives of all three states, the minister said.

Through it each of the three states would earn some 50 million euros (65 million dollars) per year, Mrkonjic said.

The declaration was signed by Mrkonjic, his Slovenian counterpart Parik Vlacic and Croatia's state secretary for transport and infrastructure Danijel Mileta, the report said.

The agreement also required the three states to remove administrative obstacles for transport of goods and passengers through their border crossings.

Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia were members of the communist Yugoslav federation that fell apart in early 1990s in a series of bloody wars.