Maja Markovčić Kostelac

• Mr. sc. Maja Markovčić Kostelac is the State Secretary for Marititme Affairs in the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure of the Republic of Croatia.  She was born in Zagreb in 1966. She graduated from the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb in 1990. In 2008 she obtained her LL.M. in maritime law and law of the sea at the Faculty of Law, University of Split, with the topic Implementation of the International Convention on Ballast Water 2004 in closed and semi-enclosed seas, with special attention to the Adriatic. From 1990 to 1993 she worked in the Zagreb City Assembly on activities relating to international cooperation and protocol, and from 1993 to 2014 she worked in the Ministry of Maritime Affairs as a consultant, Head of Department for International and Legal Affairs, Head of Maritime Safety, Acting Director of the Directorate of Maritime Affairs, and Head of the Sector for Maritime Navigation, International and Legal Affairs. From 2014 until 2017 she was employed in the Croatian Shipowners’ Association for International Navigation Mare Nostrum as Director of the Association, and her activities pertained to the promotion of the interests of Croatian shipping and the development of navigation in general. She has attended numerous diplomatic conferences as leader or member of the Croatian delegation, as well as board meetings of the International Maritime Organization and the International Labour Organisation. In addition, she was co-chairman of the Conference of States Parties to UNCLOS Convention, and participated in the preparation and negotiations for the conclusion of bilateral international maritime agreements, and in the negotiations for Croatian accession to the EU in the field of maritime affairs (Chapter 14 and Chapter 21). She worked on the preparation of almost entire Croatian maritime legislation, in particular the Maritime Code, the Act on Ports and the Maritime Domain, the Act on the Security of Ships and Ports and a number of implementing regulations, as well as the law on the ratification of international conventions in the field of maritime affairs. She is a member of the Croatian Maritime Law Association and the Maritime Council of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. She is the national coordinator of the GLOBALLAST Project for Croatia, and has participated as an expert in several international projects in the field of maritime affairs. She has worked as a lecturer at the Department of Maritime Studies at the University of Zadar, the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, and the Faculty of Maritime Studies in Rijeka. Also, she has lectured at the International Maritime Academy in Genoa and Malmo and given talks at several professional and scientific conferences in the country and abroad. She has published many scientific papers in the field of international maritime law, maritime safety and protection of the marine environment in domestic and international publications.

   

  Alternative Fuels in Marine Transport: Croatian Perspective

  The article gives an overview of the Croatian legislative framework regulating the area of alternative fuels in transport and transposing the EU Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Deployment Directive (so called AFI Directive). The legislative framework in question consists of two pieces of legislation: the Alternative Infrastructure Deployment Act, adopted in December 2016, and its subordinate act: Government Decision on the Adoption of the National Policy Framework for the Deployment of Alternative Fuels Infrastructure and Development of Alternative Fuels Market in Transport (NPF), adopted in April 2017.

  As alternative fuels policy is an excellent example of a cross-sectoral policy, where main hindering factor may be policy planning fragmentation on both horizontal and vertical factor, the article focuses on the national coordination system for policy planning and implementation set up by the Act and further developed by the NPF.

  The article/presentation also takes stock of Croatian minimum infrastructure targets for electricity and liquid and compressed natural gas (LNG and CNG) in transport defined in the NPF. The overview of targets will show how Croatia’s orientation as a maritime and tourist country was taken into consideration in the process of targets determination. Croatian initial targets for minimum sea ports LNG infrastructure and for e-vehicles road infrastructure are more ambitious than the Trans-European Core Network targets set up in the AFI Directive. The expansion of sea ports LNG infrastructure targets beyond Trans-European Core Network was a result of recognising the potential that alternative fuels infrastructure presents for further development of Croatian ports for decarbonisation of Croatian maritime costal services. The planned coverage of non-Trans-European Core Network motorway sections with high power recharging points for e-vehicles is partly based on estimated demand for e-charging by tourists.

  Finally, the planning of alternative fuels infrastructure is a difficult task based on uncertainty of market demand, future prices of energy and still developing technology. Therefore, the Croatian Alternative Infrastructure Deployment Act and NPF have foreseen a continuous revision of targets and measures every three years, based on the new information concerning market development. The first opportunity to revise the targets for maritime transport will be the adoption of liner maritime transport strategy planed not later than 2019.