Editing Neum (section)

==History==
{{See|Bosansko Primorje}}
The Neum corridor dates back to the [[Treaty of Karlowitz]] of 1699, whereby the [[Republic of Ragusa]] was separated from the [[Venetian Dalmatia|Dalmatian]] possessions of its rival [[Republic of Venice|Venice]] by two [[buffer zone]]s ceded by Ragusa to the [[Ottoman Empire]] to prevent the possibility of Venice invading via land:<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cntraveler.com/story/how-bosnia-ended-up-with-just-12-miles-of-coastline|title=This Country's Coastline Is So Short, You Could Walk It in A Day|first=Ken|last=Jennings|website=Condé Nast Traveler|date=19 September 2016 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bigdatabih.com/blog/2018/12/24/why-does-bosnia-have-a-coast/|title=Why does Bosnia have a Coast?|date=December 24, 2018|access-date=17 May 2020|archive-date=14 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814060105/https://www.bigdatabih.com/blog/2018/12/24/why-does-bosnia-have-a-coast/|url-status=dead}}</ref> north of its territory is Neum and the bay of Klek, and south of its territory is [[Sutorina]] with the port of [[Herceg Novi]] on the [[Bay of Kotor]], part of [[Montenegro]] since 1947 (later the topic of the now-resolved [[Sutorina dispute]]).

The Karlowitz borders were reaffirmed in 1718 by the [[Treaty of Passarowitz]], but then the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottomans]], tired of negotiating in vain with [[Republic of Venice|Venice]] for a widening of their maritime access, simply usurped the territory of Gornji Klek and most of [[Klek (peninsula)|Klek]] from Ragusa, which it had bought from [[King of Bosnia|King]] [[Dabiša of Bosnia]] at the end of the 14th century. After the [[fall of the Republic of Venice]] in 1797, and the [[Congress of Vienna]] in 1815, the [[Austrian Empire]], which had annexed both the [[Kingdom of Dalmatia|Dalmatian possessions of Venice and the territory of Ragusa]], tried to buy back the Neum and Sutorina enclaves from the Ottomans, but in vain. Instead, it stationed a warship to block access to the port of Neum until the [[Treaty of Berlin (1878)|Treaty of Berlin]], which gave the whole of [[Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina|Bosnia and Herzegovina]] to [[Austria-Hungary]] in 1878. Neum had been under [[Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina|Ottoman]] control for 179 years.

Consideration was given to a plan to build a new advanced naval base at Neum-Klek by the [[Austro-Hungarian Navy]]. General [[Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf]] considered fortifying Neum with coastal batteries and torpedo craft to supplement seafront defenses (in order to prevent [[Kingdom of Italy|Italian]] raids, or worse a large scale Italian landing). The project never got past the planning stage prior to the [[Outbreak of World War One|outbreak]] of [[World War I]] in 1914.<ref name="Austro-Hungarian naval policy, 1904-14 Book by Milan Vego">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qU4MJvR_yUAC|title=Austro-Hungarian Naval Policy, 1904-14|first=Milan N.|last=Vego|date=July 1, 1996|publisher=Frank Cass|isbn=9780714642093|via=Google Books}}</ref> 

[[File:Memorial to Croatian veterans (Spomen obilježje hrvatskim braniteljima) Neum 2024 1.jpg|thumb|Memorial to Croatian veterans in Neum.]]
In 1918, as a consequence of [[Dissolution of Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian defeat]], Neum joined the [[Kingdom of Yugoslavia|Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes]] which would become the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. Under the [[Karađorđević dynasty]], the Yugoslav Government ignored the historical borders twice: in 1929, when the Neum area was included in the [[Littoral Banovina]], and in 1939 when, following the [[Cvetković–Maček Agreement]], it was included in the [[Banovina of Croatia]]. [[Josip Broz Tito]]'s [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|federal Yugoslavia]] was founded on the principle, declared at the [[Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia#Second session|1943 AVNOJ session]] in [[Jajce]] and comparatively well-respected by the ''Đilas commission'' in 1945, of establishing the federative republics in their borders of 1878, which is why the Neum enclave is now part of independent Bosnia and Herzegovina, including most of Klek (Ponta Kleka, Rep Kleka), the two islets [[Veliki Školj|Veliki]] and [[Mali Školj]] and the rock of Lopata in the Bay of Klek.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://poskok.info/wp/?p=28311|title="Neum i granični problemi", ''Poskok.info'', December 14th, 2012|access-date=28 October 2013|archive-date=6 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180706075305/https://poskok.info/wp/?p=28311|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Since the 1990s, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have been in negotiations on how to handle traffic across the Neum region, including signing a [[Neum Agreement]]. When [[2013 enlargement of the European Union|Croatia was admitted]] to the [[European Union]] in 2013, the border crossings in the Neum region became governed as [[External border of the European Union|external borders of the EU]].{{Citation needed|reason=I want to read more about this|date=August 2019}} The construction and opening in 2022 of the [[Pelješac Bridge]], which bypasses Neum entirely, has significance for Croatia's integrity and also for its [[Schengen Area]] membership and the EU as a whole. It significantly improves traffic flow and the traffic connection of [[Dubrovnik]] to the rest of mainland Croatia, avoiding negotiating long, costly queues at Neum, and strict customs checks twice within the space of {{convert|20|km|mi}}.

Encouraged by the recent developments in [[Croatia–Slovenia border disputes]] (June 2017), the ruling [[Bosniaks|Bosniak]] [[Party of Democratic Action]] (SDA) and other Bosniak political parties decided to obstruct {{citation needed|date=August 2022}} the construction.
[[File:BiH Coast Guard.jpg|thumb|BiH coast guard / border police]]
The construction cost was €420 million, to which the EU contributed by allocating €357 million from Cohesion Policy funds. The bridge is among the largest infrastructures in Croatia currently and one of the most substantial EU infrastructural investment ever. The work was completed in mid 2022. The EU is also funding supporting infrastructure, such as the construction of access roads, including tunnels, bridges and viaducts, the building of an 8 km-long bypass near the town of Ston and upgrading works on the existing road D414.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/newsroom/panorama/2022/07/27-07-2022-bridging-gaps-with-eu-funds-the-inauguration-of-the-peljesac-bridge-in-croatia|title=Inforegio - Bridging gaps with EU-funds: The Inauguration of the Pelješac Bridge in Croatia|website=ec.europa.eu}}</ref>

There are Bosniak plans to convert Neum to a freight port, contrary to the wishes of the local population and international laws and agreements concerning the ecologically significant and protected [[Bay of Mali Ston]], of which Bay of Neum is a part. There are plans to build a seaport, rail and a motorway and thus the Croatian bridge must have a high clearance according to the view of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Bosniak political parties. Due to the above, the Republic of Croatia has significantly increased the height of the bridge by adapting it to ships whose dimensions cannot enter the Bay of Neum at all. Today the main freight port for Bosnia and Herzegovina is [[Ploče]] (in Croatia) farther north, which has a [[Rail transport in Bosnia and Herzegovina|railway]] to Bosnia and Herzegovina.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}