Governance of Transport Corridors in OIC Member States:
Challenges, Cases and Policy Lessons
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Figure 3.2 SEETO as indicative extension of TEN-T
Source: SEETO.
Cooperation between the SEETO members intensified in 2017 with the signing of the Transport
Community Treaty between the Western Balkan nations and the EU. The core principle behind the
treaty is to bring SEETO closer to TEN-T. The new legal framework demands more political
commitment by the member states and foresees a new governance institution, the Transport
Community Secretariat, as the successor of the current SEETO secretariat. With this recent
development, the MoU of 2004 is replaced and SEETO enters the next phase of corridor development.
SEETO is a particularly interesting case to observe as it followed a different track than TEN-T. Whereas
for TEN-T, a governance platform and a legal foundation was already available upon which a common
transport organisation could be developed, SEETO was built from the ground up. In the remainder of
this section, the various governance domains of SEETO are elaborated upon.
3.2.2 Corridor objectives and political support
Objectives of transport corridors and main drivers
The core objective of SEETO is twofold: improving the connection between the Western Balkan
transport system and EU’s TEN-T transport network and increasing the connectivity between the
member states. More specifically, SEETO defines its goals as follows22:
 Promote cooperation for the development of the SEETO network;
 Improve the capacity to implement infrastructure investment programmes;
 Improve and harmonise regional transport policies and technical standards for the network;
 Integrate the network in the framework of EU’s TEN-T.
How SEETO realized its goals has changed over time. A common transport policy for the Western
Balkans dates back to the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe established in 1999. The EU
encouraged the Western Balkan countries to develop an intra-regional cooperation platform to
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