At its fourth sitting held on 3 October, the Committee on Transportation and Communications discussed the Bills on the confirmation of the Contract of guarantee (Serbian Railways – Rolling stock) between the Republic of Serbia and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the confirmation of the Contract of guarantee between the Republic of Serbia and European Investment Bank (Railways Reconstruction II Project), the confirmation of the Agreement on establishing a high performance railway network in Southeast Europe, the confirmation of the Protocol from 3 June 1999 on the modifications of the Convention Concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) (1999 Protocol) and the Convention Concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) from 9 May 1980, the version based on the Protocol on modifications from 3 June 1999 and the confirmation of the World Postal Union Acts.

The sitting was chaired by the Committee Chairman Vladan Vucicevic. The sitting was attended by Miodrag Jocic, State Secretary at the Ministry of Infrastructure, Dejan Lasica, Assistant for Rail Transport at the Ministry, Milenko Cvetinovic, State Secretary at the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information, Vanja Mijatovic, Counselor at the Ministry, as well as the Director General of Serbian Railways, Milanko Sarancic and Bojan Ilkic, Assistant Director General of Serbian Railways.

At the proposal of Committee member Zoran Sami, one more item was added to the agenda – agreement of future cooperation between the Committee and appropriate ministries.

The Committee members conducted a unified debate on the first four items on the agenda.

Dejan Lasica, Assistant for Rail Transport at the Ministry of Infrastructure, presented all four bills to the Committee members, pointing out that the Contract of guarantee between the Republic of Serbia and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development pertains to the funds for replenishing the rolling stock i.e. the purchase of freight cars, and that the Contract of guarantee between the Republic of Serbia and European Investment Bank pertains to the 80 million euros for the recovery of railway infrastructure, especially at three sections of the railway: Nis-Dimitrovgrad, Cuprija-Paracin and Golubinci-Batajnica. The Agreement on establishing a high performance railway network in Southeast Europe means creating regional lines of passenger and freight transport, and its confirmation does not call for additional funds. He also elaborated the importance of ratifying the COTIF Protocol to the Committee members.

Milenko Cvetinovic, State Secretary at the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information, presented the Bill on the confirmation of the World Postal Union Acts noting that the ratification of these should have been done several years ago, because they were passed in 2004, adding that the means for their realisation are covered by the budget.

After the discussion on the proposed bills, the Committee members accepted them unanimously.

It was then agreed to invite the Minister of Infrastructure and the Minister of Telecommunications and Information to the subsequent sittings of the Committee, in order to work on budget proposals for the upcoming year in cooperation with the Committee members and initiate a discussion about the open issues at the Committee sittings.