February 27, 2014

Draft Law of new Seaport Act

Croatian government currently is working on a new Seaport Act. The draft contains intention of managing the maritime domain and seaports respecting tradition, legal heritage, environmental standards, and the creation of a database of all data related to the maritime domain with the help of modern technology.

Maritime domain has a third of the territory of Croatia, therefore the law is of great importance, it tries to establish the right balance of potential for economic development versus conservation of natural origin maritime domain.

In order to achieve transparency, the Ministry of Maritime Affairs organized a public debate on the Act, which includes representatives of local government, representatives of business and trade associations, associations of ship owners, hoteliers, marinas and many others. This public debates took place in Rijeka, Zadar, Split and Dubrovnik some weeks ago.

Regarding future plans on Nautical Anchorages, Branimir Mader from Croatian Chamber of  Economy said "There is only a certain percentage of the bays that will be occupied by Nautical Anchorages. There shall be no fee charged for anchoring in bays which are not classified as Nautical Anchorage". And ACI says that they are no longer focussing on their plans regarding smart buoys, so it seems that currently there are no plans for further restrictions of free anchoring.

Of course I will keep you up to date regarding this issues...