Governance of Transport Corridors in OIC Member States:

Challenges, Cases and Policy Lessons

facilitate political dialogue, with the aim to strengthen peace, economy and democracy. In the following

years, negotiations started on the development of an infrastructure plan for the Western Balkans. This

led to the development of a working document on transport and energy infrastructure in South East

Europe by the European Commission in 2001, technical studies by TIRS and REBIS in 2002 and 2003,

and high-level meetings in Luxembourg, Skopje and London in 2003.

SEETO was established in 2004 by the Memorandumof Understanding by the Governments of Albania,

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo as well as the European

Commission. An addendum to the MoU on railways was signed by the participants in 2007. In 2008,

the EC started drafting a treaty on establishing a Transport Community in the western Balkans. The

new treaty should replace the MoU and accelerate the development of Western Balkan transport

systems as well as its integration with the EU. SEETO was integrated with the TEN-T network in 2013,

renaming the SEETO network to: “Indicative Extension of TEN-T Comprehensive Network to the

Western Balkans”. On the ninth of October 2017, the Western Balkan nations signed the Treaty of

establishing a Transport Community:

“The aim of this Treaty is the creation of a Transport Community in the field of road, rail, inland

waterway and maritime transport as well as the development of the transport network between the

European Union and the South East European Parties […]. The Transport Community shall be based on

the progressive integration of transport markets of the South East European Parties into the European

Union transport market on the basis of the relevant acquis, including in the areas of technical standards,

interoperability, safety, security, traffic management, social policy, public procurement and

environment, for all modes of transport excluding air transport. “

Alongside the development of the Treaty was the establishment of the

Connectivity Agenda

by the EU.

The Connectivity Agenda is a €1 billion fund set up by the EU in cooperation with the Western Balkan

states to finance transport infrastructure and to provide technical assistance to the Western Balkan

states. Hard infrastructure investments are directed to 10 infrastructure projects, compromising of 4

energy-, 2 road-, 3 rail- and 1 terminal related project. Soft infrastructure investments are focussed on

three topics: opening the transport market by implementing a rail reform strategy; establishing a

reliable, safe and competitive transport system through deploying an Intelligent Transport System and

a maintenance plan for all member states; and establishing more cross border agreements and setting

up an Integrated Border Management strategy. The Connectivity Agenda is based on extensive

research and forms the basis of the Action Plans that were published by SEETO in the last years. The

integration process of SEETO over time is presented in Table 3.7.

Table 3.7 Evolvement of SEETO over time

Source: consortium.

Treaty on establishing the Transport Community.

Knowledge Exchange

Cooperation and

collaboration

Collaboration

Integration

1990s – 2004

2004-2013

2013+

1999: Stability Pact for

South-Eastern Europe

2004: MoU

2007: Addendum to MoU

on rail transport

2012: SEETO priority

rating system

2013: integration

with TEN-T

2014: Connectivity

Agenda

2017: Transport

Community Treaty