Achieving the highest safety and technical quality of construction

This is project is funded by the European Union under the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) to assist Montenegro to make the transition from a candidate to a full member of the EU. The main beneficiary is the Ministry of Sustainable Development.

As part of the Single Market initiative, this project is to assist with the free movement of goods and services. This project will complement the earlier project “Development of Quality Infrastructure in Montenegro“ and will draw on the progress made.

Montenegro and the Balkans are in a seismic zone and have suffered severe earthquakes in their history resulting in loss of life and damage to infrastructure. Montenegro has used Yugoslav standards, which have not been kept up to date, and the opportunity is taken to move to Structural Eurocodes, which have been developed over the last 35 years, in line with the rest of the EU community. It is recognised that the transition from one well established system to a totally new system is a major challenge and needs to be managed in a proportional manner recognising the particular situation of Montenegro.

The project has three components:
• an action plan for adoption of the Eurocodes with issues of regional co-operation for translations and meteorological data, data for national annexes, IT equipment to assist with the national annexes and a legal road map for adjusting the legislation thus permitting the use of Eurocodes;
• an action plan for the implementation of the Eurocodes by developing information for existing engineers, updating university teaching notes, training of professionals and training of trainers to provide sustainability beyond the life of the project;
• national annex to Eurocode 8 part 1 in Montenegrin to be elaborated by using the data from NATO project “Harmonization of Seismic Hazard Maps for the Western Balkans Countries” and other nationally determined parameters.

In addition, a network will be set up with the neighbouring countries to share the translations and technical data relating to climate. The intention being that there should be no unnecessary duplication of effort.

We shall also provide training and awareness raising campaigns on all 10 Eurocodes. We shall also advise on national legislation according to the Construction Products Regulation and EC Directive 2004/18/EC for public procurement.

Project Partners

The project is EU funded as part of Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) programme. The delivery partners are the Austrian Standards Institute (ASI), lead partner, and Association Française de Normalisation, Twinning Implementing Junior Partner (AFNOR). The main beneficiary is the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism and through them:

• ISME
• Chamber of Engineers
• Civil Engineering Faculty, Montenegro University
• Seimological Observatory
• Chamber of Economy/Commerce
• Hydrometeorlogical Institute
• Geological Institute
• Zigma

Project Proposals

In this project national regulations and standards will be updated in line with the rest of the EU for structural design using Structural Eurocodes. As part of this transition there will be training provided for successful adoption, implementation and use of Eurocodes. The Construction Products Regulations will also be implemented to achieve free movement of construction products.

Input Required

To achieve this will require the adoption of Structural Eurocodes which will be quite different to the existing JUS standards. ISME TK 002 (Eurocodes) will lead on the technical front but will require input from all the project partners listed above. We are expecting all stakeholders to take an active role in this major change for construction. This will require sustained commitment for some time to come. The representatives are expected to also disseminate the information and progress back to their organisations and membership.

The project commenced at the end of April 2012 and is scheduled to run until October 2013. During this time, all the stakeholders will be actively involved in the development of the above outputs.