Outgoing Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday that tourists will be traveling to Greece through Serbia this year by highway, except in two sections.
“The hardest part is through the Grdelica Gorge. Here is also our longest and most complicated tunnel, Manajle, two kilometers long. He we also had NATO strikes in 1999. It’s terribly hard terrain and I know that our builders, our heroes, our companies working as subcontractors, will be able to pull it off,” said Vucic.
Speaking during his final news conference as prime minister, the president-elect showed a map with all the sections and said that beside this part, the Srpska Kuca-Levosije stretch also remains to be done on Corridor X’s southern arm, adding that it will be completed by the end of the year.
“Just a small piece of the highway to Greece (remains) this year, while next year, this will be a full-profile highway,” he said.
As for the eastern arm of the highway to Bulgaria, Vucic said another “difficult tunnel,” 800-meter Bancarevo, was located there.
When the entire length of the road – 84 kilometers – has been finished, “we will have access to the Bulgarian border and Sofia.” Vucic said.
He said that he was “particularly proud of Corridor XI” because “none of it was even touched” before he entered the government.
“It is said that (Josip) Broz or some others did not want to build a highway there. He built too many things for me to believe that,” said Vucic.
According to him this is the main road through central and western Serbia, while this year there will be highway between Lajkovac and Cacak.
By the end of next year the 17.8-kilometer Surcin-Obrenovac section will be finished, Vucic announced.
Vucic also said that he will, as president, “insist” on building of the Nis-Pristina highway.
The highway would be “important for people who live along it, as it passes through Serbia’s least developed areas.”
“That’s salvation for us. If we have a highway there it will be much easier both for citizens and investors who want to invest in that area,” Vucic said.
