17. The Transport Sector in Serbia

Serbia enjoys favourable geographic position at the crossroads of the main routes linking Central and Western Europe with the southeast of the continent and the Middle East. However, being on the outside borders of European Union, it has not fully benefitted from this geographic leverage. In this respect, the process of integration into the EU is of great importance, accompanied by international transport projects, ranging from pan-European corridors defined during the 1990s to the more recent extension of the trans-European transport network and the core network corridors to the Western Balkan region. These projects have highly influenced Serbia’s transport policies, which aim to upgrade the national transport system according to EU standards and to achieve complete integration into the single European market. A commitment to these goals implies costly infrastructural investments and non-physical improvements in all transport modes, as well as in their efficient interconnectivity and interoperability being embodied in the growing relevance of intermodal transport flows. However, in a country with a relatively deteriorated transport infrastructure, such as Serbia, an excessive focus on the national transport system may worsen intraregional, socioeconomic disparities by neglecting local transport initiatives and the needs of deprived areas.