EUR 6.65 million for Adriatic region water supply project

BELGRADE - The countries of the Adriatic region are preparing a protocol for eliminating potential problems concerning shared water supply systems and groundwater resources, and the budget for the project amounts to EUR 6.65 million.

The Drinkadria-Networking for Drinking Water Supply in the Adriatic Region project has been being implemented for a year now, and is supposed to last 2.5 years.

The project involves participation of representatives of 16 partner institutions from the countries of the Adriatic Basin: Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Serbia, Dejan Dimkic, Drinkadria project coordinator for Serbia, said ahead of a meeting that started in Belgrade on Tuesday and is due to end on November 28.

Dimkic, who serves as head of the Department for Water Balance and Climate Change at the Belgrade-based Jaroslav Cerni Institute for the Development of Water Resources, says that in the past, there have been problems between countries when water was distributed from one country to another, ranging from obstruction to the price of water.

The aim of the project is to develop protocols that would provide a basis for a peaceful solution of possible disagreements, he said.

Serbia does not share any water supply system with any country, but it shares groundwater sources, particularly in the north, with the Hungarians and Romanians.

Dimkic stressed that Serbia was behind Austria and ahead of Greece by available quantity of water, and it had enough of the resource, provided it handled it wisely.

The Drinkadria project was begun in December 2013 and should last until March 2016. It is financed by the EU through an IPA Adriatic Cross Border Cooperation...

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