Croats freaked out about Belgrade's Waterfront: Sheikhs are building Serbs a luxurious Belgrade!

The Croatian newspaper referred to the fact that rich sheikhs will invest about 3.1 billion dollars in the "Belgrade Waterfront" project.

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Here is what they wrote:

Up until the beginning of April, 88 families were evicted and 179 of the 246 slums spanning 40 acres were destroyed between the railway station and the Sava river.

Belgrade will get its own Manhattan! The Grandiose "Belgrade Waterfront" project was defended last week in the Serbian Parliament personally by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic.

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Foto: Tanjug/Rade Prelić

In a 70 minute long exposé, he explained to representatives and the Serbian public, why it is necessary to nationalize the building and land along the coast towards the banks of the Sava and Danube in the area between the river and main railway station. And he succeeded: for a special law that will boost the great Arab investments - there is mention of an incredible $ 3.1 billion figure - as voted in by 176 MPs of the ruling coalition, of which only nine were against.

At the entrance of the Belgrade railway station hangs a large poster of a futuristic project that will - if you build all these glass towers of interesting shapes together - convert Belgrade into the Balkan Dubai.

The investor should be the "Emaar Properties" firm who built the largest building in the world - Burj Kalfiu. The entire 828 meter high building in the biggest city of the United Arab Emirates was built for $ 1.5 billion, and now the same company is ready to invest twice as much money in Belgrade.

That this is not just a megalomaniac project that will never take wind was shown by the Prime Minister Vucic, announcing that 179 facilities of the 246 facilities planned in the first phase, have been removed from the area of Savamala, the urban part of the city near Branko's bridge.

Foto: Telegraf

- I did not expect this much resistance to progress and modernization - said Vucic and compared the unbuilt glass city on the bank of the Sava with the resistance that occurred during the construction of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

- The idea of ​​lowering Belgrade to its rivers exists since the '50s of the last century - recalled Vucic, but the plan of moving the railway line from the bank of the Sava entered the general urban plan of Belgrade in 1972.

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Vucic ardently advocated the project, noting that the "Belgrade waterfront" winners will be the state and nation, "and not the tycoons".

Against the megalomaniac project is Mihajlo Mitrovic, the architect of the Genex Tower, the West Gate of Belgrade, and the monumental buildings at the entrance to the city along the highway Zagreb - Belgrade.

Foto: Telegraf

The association of Transparency of Serbia warned that the project is anything but transparent: in general it is not known under what conditions the investors will get the legal right to build, nor of the nature of the contract in question.

The Prime Minister of Serbia and Belgrade's mayor have repeatedly said that only the investor assumes the risk if the built blocks are unable to be sold. Serbia should therefore only be responsible for providing the land.

- We will give a clean ground, and they will invest the financial resources necessary in order for these 1.8 million square meters of space to end up built - assures mayor Sinisa Mali, to the public, asserting that it is in everyone's interest to remove slums, rusty wagons and shipwrecks, so that the center of Belgrade receives the new face it deserves.

(Telegraf.co.uk/Jutarnji.hr)