site.btaBulgaria Presents to European Commission Views on Road, Railway Development in Period Ending 2020

Bulgaria Presents to European Commission Views on Road, Railway Development
in Period Ending 2020

Brussels, September 26 (BTA correspondent Nikolay Jeliazkov) -
Bulgarian Transport, Information Technology and Communications
Minister Nikolina Angelkova Friday presented to the European
Commission her country's view about the use of the funds under
Operational Programme Transport in the 2014-2020 period.

Bulgaria has proposed a budget of some 1,900 million euro for
roads and railways under that operational programme, with 85 per
cent EU co-financing, Angelkova told Bulgarian journalists in
Brussels.

Bulgaria proposed the completion of the railway lines from Sofia
to the border with Turkey and to Bourgas. The Transport
Minister expects that two stretches of the Plovdiv-Bourgas
railway will go under construction next year.

Cooperation is starting with the joint programme of the European
Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) for
development of the Bulgarian State Railways, intended to improve
the quality of trains in Bulgaria.

Among the road projects, Bulgaria prioritizes the third stretch
of the Strouma Motorway (Blagoevgrad-Sandanski). This country
proposes a completion of the design for the nearly 20 km of
tunnels in this sector. Parallel to that, the Strategic
Infrastructure Projects National Company is developing an
alternative version that would reduce the price of the sector by
some 200 million euro without deferring the start of
construction from early 2016 while making it possible to finish
the project earlier, the Minister said.

Construction of the Hemus Motorway is proposed to be entirely
under Operational Programme Transport, which should finance the
Yablanitsa-Veliko Turnovo stretch, while the stretch between
Veliko Turnovo and Shoumen should be financed by an EIB loan.
Angelkova expects the Yablanitsa-Pleven part of the Hemus
Motorway to go under construction next year, as well as the
third part of the Strouma Motorway.

The EIB starts work on a new strategy for charging for the use
of Bulgarian roads. Tolls may be introduced on some roads, and
the vignette system may be kept or dropped. The idea is to
determine which roads are suitable to be tolled and thus attract
private investors to road construction. The bank is expected to
be ready with its assessment by the end of 2015.