Bosnia and Herzegovina–Croatia border

Neum

When Yugoslavia broke up in the 1990s, the borders between its six republics became international frontiers. Bosnia kept its small outlet to the Adriatic, which cuts right through the Croatian coast, leaving about 90,000 people, including those in Dubrovnik, cut off from the rest of Croatia by a border.^[2] Drivers heading south had to leave Croatia, cross a Bosnian checkpoint and re-enter the EU about 9 km later.^[1]

Ferries, an undersea tunnel and a sealed corridor through Bosnia were all floated as ways around it. Croatia first tried to build a bridge in 2007 but stalled in 2012 for lack of money.^[1][2]

The Pelješac bridge

In 2017 the EU agreed to pay about 85 percent of the cost, and in 2018 the China Road and Bridge Corporation won the contract, the first significant Chinese involvement in a Croatian infrastructure project. Officials in Bosnia objected that the bridge would stop large ships from reaching its only port, and Croatia raised its clearance to 55 metres. The 2.4 km span, from the mainland to the Pelješac peninsula, opened on 26 July 2022.^[2]

In Neum, a waiter on the coastal highway feared that his business, which depended on passing tourists, would be finished; a café owner away from the road expected easier access to Pelješac’s beaches to bring more Bosnians to the coast.^[1]

“We are finally becoming part of Croatia. Until now we felt like second-class citizens.”^[2]