Traffic suspended at Gradiska border crossing after bridge railing collapses

“Due to the collapse of part of the bridge, traffic at the Gradiška border crossing has been suspended since last night. Traffic has increased at the border crossings of Kostajnica, Kozarska Dubica and Gradina,” BIHAMK said in a statement.

The bridge over the Sava at Gradiska was built in the early 1960s.

For decades, it has been a bottleneck in cross-border traffic, as hundreds of trucks and passenger vehicles cross it daily, while on the Bosnia and Herzegovina side it connects only to a narrow road running through a populated area, frequently causing traffic congestion.

Because of this, a new bridge over the Sava River and a new border crossing were built, but they are still not operational due to internal disputes in Bosnia.

The opening of the crossing is being blocked by Zijad Krnjic, a member of the Steering Board of the Indirect Taxation Authority of Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNO), who refuses to approve amendments to customs service regulations. As a result, customs officers cannot be assigned to the crossing and customs supervision cannot be carried out.

Krnjic is making his approval conditional on changes to the coefficients used to distribute VAT revenues among the country's two entities, claiming that the current formula disadvantages the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity.