Bulgaria’s Trakia Motorway tragedy: Recriminations and compensation

Recriminations, including opposition calls for the Prime Minister to resign, and a Cabinet decision to award a strikingly large sum to the families and heirs of the deceased, have followed the November 10 chain crashes on Bulgaria’s Trakia Motorway in which 11 people died and 86 vehicles collided.

On November 10, Daniel Mitov, an MP for Boiko Borissov’s opposition coalition GERB-UDF, called for Prime Minister Roumen Radev and the “ministers responsible for the tragedy on the Trakia Motorway” to resign.

“Those in power have become accustomed to lying,” Mitov said.

“Today, (Interior) Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev announced that one of the reasons for the tragedy is that there is no connection between the Road Infrastructure Agency, the Ministry of Interior and the toll administration systems,” he said.

GERB MP Nikolai Nankov said that the section of the motorway where the accidents occured was “a skating rink” and for the first time in the past 30 years, as of November 10, there was still no announced winter maintenance system for the Trakia Motorway.

Kalin Stoyanov, an MP for the opposition Movement for Rights and Freedoms and a former interior minister, called for the immediate resignations of “all those responsible” for the November 10 chain crashes.

However, on November 11, a day after his party called for resignations, Borissov said that a law should be passed to prevent politicians commenting for at least 24 hours after such accidents.

Borissov went on to criticise the government for its lack of moral responsibility after the tragedy. He said that those responsible will not remove anyone, but will put the blame elsewhere.

“I removed three ministers for much smaller disasters, I removed Parliament Speakers for much smaller offences, this is a moral responsibility,” Borissov said.

On November 11, Parliament opened its sitting with a minute of silence for those who died in the chain crashes the day before. The ruling majority voted down opposition proposals for hearings of senior officials in connection with the Trakia Motorway crashes.

Road engineer Iliya Zapryanov told Nova Televizia on November that the Trakia Motorway is designed for a much lower load of heavy lorries.

Zapryanov said that the share of heavy good lorries among the vehicles in chain accidents on the Trakia Motorway is significantly higher than assumed when designing the highway.

He estimated that out of a total of 86 vehicles involved in the accidents, 22 were heavy goods lorries, or about a quarter. The motorway was designed to accommodate five to seven per cent of heavy goods vehicles.

According to Zapryanov, one of the quick solutions to relieve traffic on the motorway is to redirect lorries from Bourgas, Stara Zagora, Sliven and Yambol to Sofia along the Sub-Balkan Road , which is less congested.

“Drivers are worried about the lorries breathing down their necks . When you are moving at 90, 85, 95 km/h, the lorry behind you does not keep distance and bothers you,” Zapryanov. Said.

He also raised the issue of the lack of signs that specify a minimum distance between vehicles.

“Have you seen this road sign installed anywhere in Bulgaria? Who controls it? Where is the traffic police? Where is the Road Infrastructure Agency?” he said.

On November 11, the Cabinet decided to allocate 8000 euro each to the families and heirs of the 11 deceased.

This amount is unprecedented . It is the highest assistance to the relatives of the deceased that the state has ever paid.

Typically, such extraordinary financial support is provided to families of victims of natural disasters.

By comparison, during the floods in Tsarevo municipality in September 2023, the cabinet allocated 15 000 leva (about 7669 euro) each to the legal heirs of the four deceased.

The same amount of aid was also determined for the heirs of the four people who died in the floods in the Bourgas region on October 3 and 4 2025.

There is no other case where the government has provided financial assistance of this type to the relatives of people who died in road accidents.

In the bus accident near Svoge in August 2018, when 20 people died, the Social Assistance Agency announced that the families of the deceased and injured were legally entitled to receive a one-time benefit of up to 375 leva.

Meanwhile, the Romanian lorry driver whose vehicle reportedly was the first vehicle involved in the crash has been detained and questioned, but according to Bulgarian National Television, the Prosecutor’s Office will not press charges.