site.btaNorth Macedonia Transport Minister: Construction of Corridor X Is a Priority, Railway Link with Bulgaria Is Problematic

The construction of Corridor X railway link is a priority for the Republic of North Macedonia, Transport Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski said after a meeting with the dean of the Faculty of Construction in Skopje on Wednesday. He indicated that he would talk to international donors about how to most efficiently to distribute the funding available for the construction of the railways in his country. In an interview with TV Alfa on Tuesday, Nikoloski said that he was not against the construction of the Corridor VIII railway which will connect North Macedonia with Bulgaria, but the project is faced with a myriad of problems.

"I'm not going to allow that much money to be spent - even though some of it is from a grant but the rest is on loan - for something that's not going to be used. We should not invest in a railway where trains will be going no faster than 60 kilometers per hour. The second problem is that we do not know whether the Bulgarians will do their part on the railway. There is little to be done, but even if a kilometre is missing, it cannot be used. The biggest problem is that the border has to be crossed with a tunnel that is only half-designed," Nikoloski was quoted as saying by the Denesen daily.

He also said, "For me, the most useful project for (North) Macedonia is the construction of a high-speed railway from Skopje to Thessaloniki, running at 200 kilometres per hour for passengers and up to 160 kilometres per hour for freight. This means that all freight to be transported to Central Europe must pass through (North) Macedonia and the journey from Skopje to Thessaloniki should take up to 1 hour and 15 minutes. This railway line passes through Nis, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Subotica and Budapest and should be the main artery of Central Europe. With this, (North) Macedonia will regain its key position in the Balkans."

The total length of the eastern end of Corridor VIII is 88.2 km, of which 34 km - the Beljakovce - Kriva Palanka section - is being built on EU funding provided through the Western Balkans Investment Framework, with a grant of 75 million  euro from the EU, complemented by national co-funding. Funding for the completion of the eastern end of Corridor VIII to the Bulgarian border has been secured from an EU pre-accession grant under the Western Balkans Financial Framework and two loans from the EBRD and EIB. On the territory of North Macedonia, the project has to be built according to European standards in order to make the railway compatible with the railway lines in Europe. 

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. The central part of this 315 km long pan-European corridor passes through Northern Macedonia - Kicevo, Skopje, Kumanovo, Belakovce and Kriva Palanka. However, there are no connections at the western end (from Kicevo to the Albanian border) and at the eastern end (from Kumanovo to the Bulgarian border).

The official start of construction works on the railway part of Corridor VIII on the territory of North Macedonia in the Kumanovo-Beljakovce-Kriva Palanka was 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.