After 20 years of waiting, the JASPERS agency has confirmed the completion of a project that will cover the entire island with municipal infrastructure. Mayor Radović: 'This is news of vital importance.'
The millennium infrastructure project of the Municipality of Vir has received final approval from the European Union. The EU agency JASPERS has officially issued the "Action Completion Note," confirming that the Vir agglomeration project is ready for financing and implementation. This will provide the entire island of Vir with a complete water supply and sewage network.
JASPERS (Joint Assistance in Supporting Projects in European Regions) is the final project evaluation authority, composed of three partners: the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Their confirmation means that construction of the network can proceed in every settlement and street on the island.
The future network will consist of 107 kilometers of water supply and 113 kilometers of sewage pipelines, including the remaining 14 pumping stations, two hydro blocks, and a wastewater treatment plant with a capacity of 53,000 PE (population equivalent). The project also includes a submarine outfall. The total value is €171.1 million excluding VAT, or €213.9 million including VAT.
The EU share is expected to be around €120 million. The remaining approximately €50 million will be distributed among Hrvatske vode (Croatian Waters) and the relevant Ministry (together €30 million) and the Municipality of Vir, which participates with 12 percent, or about €20.5 million. The exact financial contributions will be defined upon signing the co-financing agreement with the Government of the Republic of Croatia.
The Mayor of the Municipality of Vir, Marino Radović, emphasized the importance of the approval for all residents and tourists. "This is news of vital importance for all our residents and tourists who come to the island of Vir in large numbers, as well as for all those who have been involved in the project of building the water supply and sewage network on the island of Vir from the very beginning," Radović said for eZadar.
He recalled that the project has been ongoing for two decades. "I said that we brought water to the island of Vir and that we would complete the project of building the water supply and sewage network across the entire island. We have now received confirmation of our project from the EU agency JASPERS, which means it is ready for financing," he added.
The Municipality will finance its share of €20.5 million through a loan. "Our annual budget is about €8 million, which means that financing the entire agglomeration project would take us almost 30 years of allocating the entire budget, which is simply impossible. We will cover the €20.5 million share with a loan, but it will be the most beautiful and most important borrowing. We endured criticism and worked in silence, so now we can proudly announce that the entire island of Vir will be covered by the water supply and sewage network," Radović stated.
The President of the Vir Municipal Council, Kristijan Kapović, emphasized the historical dimension of the project, recalling the state's attitude toward Vir in the early 2000s. "The case of Vir is probably unprecedented in all of modern history. There is no place that the state has rejected as the Croatian Government once rejected Vir. The head of the government's office for spatial planning, Jerko Rošin, on behalf of the Croatian Government, said in 2004 that Vir could expect the fate of the island of lepers and that the only solution for Vir was to bomb the island and level it with bulldozers. This should always be emphasized, even if repeated a hundred times, because it was a signal to the entire state to wash its hands of the island of Vir," Kapović said.
He added that a third of the island is currently covered by the water supply and sewage network, and the rest will be completed in the next five to six years. "This is our victory. If we, with our own efforts on Vir, had not done this enormous work, the agglomeration would never have been built or financed by the EU," Kapović concluded.
The co-financing agreement could be signed by the ceremonial session of the Municipal Council on the occasion of Vir Municipality Day on August 29, but the Municipality of Vir is ready to wait until September if necessary. In summer, Vir records 50,000 to 60,000 people, and the project is significant not only for islanders and tourists but also for the entire Zadar County and Croatia.
