Athens, 23 July 2007
On Monday, 23 July, Prime Minister Mr. Kostas Karamanlis, accompanied by Deputy Foreign Minister Mr. Evripidis Stylianidis, will be in Sarajevo to inaugurate the Greek-Bosnian Friendship Building with his Bosnian counterpart. This building cost a total of €16.8 million and was constructed thanks to the contribution of the Greek state, which came to about €13.5 million – 80.4% of the total cost. This will bring to completion one of the most important public works of the Hellenic Plan for the Economic Reconstruction of the Balkans (HiPERB). This building is in the centre of the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina and will house the country’s government services. Within the framework of the Greek mission’s visit to Sarajevo, Mr. Stylianidis and his Bosnian counterpart will sign an Agreement on Economic and Technological Cooperation and an Agreement on the Avoidance of Double Taxation.
The building being inaugurated in the centre of Sarajevo once housed the government services of Bosnia and was bombed relentlessly during the recent war in the former Yugoslavia. The 20-storey building was practically destroyed and the previous Greek government had the idea of undertaking its reconstruction. Thanks to HiPERB, the building was completed with the help of a Greek-Bosnian construction joint venture. The building will once again house the services of the central government of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the offices of the SEECP.
As Mr. Stylianidis has stated, this particular project is the first major project to be funded by our country in the region. More major projects will follow, showing that Greece is conscientious and effective with regard to its undertakings in the broader region of the Balkans.
The next projects to be completed will include Pan-European Corridor X, which will link the port of Thessaloniki with Skopje, Belgrade and Central Europe. This project will be co-funded by Greece through HiPERB. The 108-km roadway, with a total budget of €37.6 million, will end the isolation of 18 ethnic Greek communities and will strengthen cross-border trade. HiPERB is also funding the Balkan fibre-optic network SeeLight, which will link Greek universities with the major universities of the Balkans. The initial phase of SeeLight has a budget of €19.8 million – of which HiPERB will provide €15.9 million – and concerns Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The National Research and Technology Network is preparing and coordinating the project, which provides for a very high-speed regional fibre-optic network that will link research and educational centres in the countries in question with the Pan-European high-speed network GEANT.