BELGRADE -- The caretaker government has decided not to annul the Horgoš-Požega concession contract.
Source: B92
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The cabinet held a telephone session on the issue.
A consortium made up of Austrian Apine and PORR, who won the tender to construct the highway running from the north to the central parts of the country, will have until the end of the year to secure the banking guarantees necessary for the deal to go ahead.
The construction works, however, will not start until a new government takes over after the May 11 elections.
The deadline for the concessionaires to begin work on the highway was set to expire at midnight today. Failure to come up with a compromise would also have brought down the capital investment, estimated earlier to be worth in excess of EUR 1.5bn.
Democratic Party (DS) and G17 Plus ministers called on Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica (DSS) Friday to schedule a new cabinet meeting, at which a 90-day extension would be given to the concessionaires to secure the needed guarantees.
In the end, the outgoing government decided for the second option mentioned earlier, effectively freezing the deal until after the parliamentary ballot.