Mayor
of Municipality of Foča Zdravko Krsmanović was elected President of the
Euroregion Drina, which was established at the Founding Assembly held at the
ethno-village Stanišić near Bijeljina, while Dejan Mlađenović, Deputy Mayor of
the Municipality of Bajina Bašta, was elected Vice President.
In
the next two years the Euroregion headquarters will be in Foča because by Statute
the president is elected for a term of two years and the seat of the region is
in the same town as the president.
The
work program of Euroregion Drina will include protection of water quality from
source to mouth, cleaning of the riverbeds and problem solving which
municipalities and cities face regarding exploitation of mineral raw materials,
especially gravel from the riverbed of the river Drina.
"The essence
of our story is to turn towards Brussels and the European funds. There is a
huge amount of money from European funds which will come to these areas from Brussels.
When the river Drina is managed in a manner to avoid flooding which can cause
damage worth dozens of millions because some HPP works without a work regime,
when you come to a stage to exploit gravel which changes the river bed, when on
the one hand you develop tourism on the other dirty technologies when you have
spatial planning documents which are completely different on one and on the
other side of the river Drina, it is necessary to adopt an Integrated
Development Program on the Drina River, which will be made to the highest standards," said
Krsmanović.
Mayor
of Šabac Miloš Milošević says Drina river has its beauty but also brings
damage. The priority of the Euroregion Drina should be cleaning it from the
bottles and plastic bags and protecting the flora and the fauna. Milošević
addressed the problem of gravel exploitation faced by cities and municipalities
in the lower reaches of the river Drina. He says that the gravel exploitation
is in the illegal stage and it is necessary to prevent such a relation towards
the river, which even diverts the river stream and impacts the bank.
Mayor
of Županja Davor Miličević said that Croatia is on the threshold to the European
Union and that by connecting into Euroregions, of which in Europe there are
hundreds, cities and municipalities can only benefit.
The
Founding Meeting was attended by representatives of 17 cities and
municipalities along the Drina riverbank, from the following four countries
Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and BiH, as well as representatives of tourism and
international organizations. The initiative for the formation of Euro region
came six months ago at a meeting in Loznica.
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