Bulgaria’s Transport Minister: 4B leva needed to carry out strategic railway projects
The budget necessary to implement all strategic railway projects in Bulgaria after 2021 is four billion leva (about two billion euro), Transport Minister Rossen Zhelyazkov said on March 18.
Zhelyazkov was speaking at a working breakfast with representatives of the German-Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Advantage Austria, which promotes business relations between Bulgaria and Austria.
He said that the projects to which he was referring included the rail links with Serbia and North Macedonia, Vidin-Medkovets, Karnobat-Sindel, the introduction of the European Rail Traffic Management System in various parts of Bulgaria, as well as development of the railway junctions at Varna and at Gorna Oryahovitsa.
“As an EU member state, we are pursuing a clear policy, in line with European priorities, aiming to achieve optimal integration of the transport networks in the Union,” Zhelyazkov said.
He said that the projects on the main TEN-T network should be completed by 2030, and by 2050 all projects of the comprehensive network.
TEN-T, the Trans-European Transport Network, is a European Commission policy directed towards the implementation and development of a Europe-wide network of roads, railway lines, inland waterways, maritime shipping routes, ports, airports and rail-road terminals. It consists of two planning layers -the Comprehensive Network, covering all European regions, and the Core Network, the most important connections within the Comprehensive Network linking the most important nodes.
(Photo: Transport Ministry)
