site.btaNorth Macedonia Transport Minister: Railway to Bulgaria Leads to Tunnel with No Exit

The construction of the third phase of the Corridor VIII railway, which is to connect North Macedonia with Bulgaria, is "the most expensive railway in the world", as the remaining 23.4 km route costs EUR 24 million per kilometer, the newly elected Minister of Transport of North Macedonia Aleksandar Nikoloski said at a press conference. 

"Hundreds of houses have to be demolished and people displaced, and most importantly - it ends with a tunnel that has no exit. According to the project, and according to the laws, you can only build on your own territory, and the connection with Bulgaria must be made via a tunnel. It can only be built up to the border with Bulgaria, from there it has to be extended by Bulgaria," Nikoloski said.   
 
Nikolovski's press conference was held on the occasion of the conclusions of a report of the state audit institution in the country in connection with the implementation of capital investments financed through the budget of North Macedonia, EU funds and funds from other international financial institutions. Corridor VIII, Phase 3, is one of the four projects under the EU's pre-accession programme for environment and transport (IPA-2) that are at a risk of losing funds.   
 
In his words, for the third phase of the railway line to Bulgaria, for which, according to the report, the cost has increased by EUR 220 million in excess of the originally planned EUR 340 million, in an "extremely non-transparent process" a tender procedure was launched "before the elections in conditions when it is clear that there will be a change in government."   
  
"The logical questions are whether it should be built at this price and through a tunnel that leads to nowhere," Nikoloski said.  
  
The construction of the railway, part of Pan-European Corridor VIII to the border with Bulgaria, is not on the programme of the government of North Macedonia.   
  
The official start of the construction works on the railway part of Corridor VIII on the territory of North Macedonia in the section Kumanovo- Beljakovce-Kriva Palanka was given in October 2022, near Kumanovo, with the participation of the then prime ministers of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia, Galab Donev and Dimitar Kovachevski.  
  
The transnational East-West transport axis (Corridor VIII) stretches from the port of Bari in Italy to the ports of Varna and Burgas in Bulgaria.