The Bulgarian transport minister said that having only two bridges over the 475 km Danube border its shares with Romania creates an “Iron Curtain” within the EU and called for at least one more crossing.
Only two bridges connect Bulgaria and Romania along our 475 km of common river border – this is a transport deficit that functions as a new “iron curtain” within the European Union, ” Bulgaria’s Transport and Communications Minister Grozdan Karadjov said.
His comments on Thursday came during a trilateral meeting with the Greece’s Transport Minister Konstantinos Kiranakis and the deputy Romanian Transport and Infrastructure Minister, Horatiu Cosma.
„If we concentrate all the traffic at one point, in this case Ruse-Giurgev, we lose all the capacity when there is a traffic jam in the south-north direction. This is not reasonable and is not a sustainable transport architecture,” he added.
“We urgently need at least one more crossing to the east along the river, for example a bridge at Silistra – Calarasi”, Karadjov was reported as saying by Fakti.
He called for an accelerated agreement between the three countries for the construction of additional bridge facilities.
“We need to connect Bucharest with Athens and Alexandroupolis with Odessa – this is the common task of our three countries”, he said, calling for real rather than merely declarative, transport integration.
“We can discuss connectivity for decades, but without real projects and actions, this connectivity will not happen. If you go to Calarasi and throw a stone, it will fall on the Bulgarian shore, we are that close. And at the same time, trucks wait for hours to cross the Danube with the only ferry”.
Greek Minister Konstantinos Kiranakis called for short-term action: “European funding resources are available until the end of 2025. If we manage to develop a joint transport map, especially in the railway sector, we will be able to apply with integrated projects.”
State secretary Horatiu Cosma underlined that the Alexandroupolis-Ruse-Giurgiu-Moldova corridor is of strategic importance for Bucharest.
“The key issue is financing. We are ready to cooperate on more bridges. We are ready to talk about the first bridge at the beginning and then continue the conversation with more bridges,” he said.
