“Bulgaria, Greece and Romania will request funding for a joint project to modernise the Thessaloniki-Sofia-Bucharest railway line”, according to the Bulgarian ministry of transport Grozdan Karadjov. One of the main focuses is to enhance rail connectivity across the Danube between Bulgaria and Romania.
The three countries have been getting more serious about boosting rail freight connections over the past couple of months. For example, they established the Black Sea – Aegean Sea Corridor Platform (BACP) to facilitate seamless logistics last December. The new platform creates three main axes along the Baltic Sea – Black Sea – Aegean Sea TEN-T Corridor. The BACP will work to create the conditions to treat these international routes as unified paths.
Crossing the Danube
When it comes to the projects for bridges across the Danube, there are three initiatives. The first one entails the modernisation of an existing bridge and the construction of a new one between Ruse (BG) and Giurgiu (RO). Works on the first bridge “will be completed by June this year”, Karadjov stated. After that, the bridge should be ready to be electrified, a move that should cut costs for freight services by 30%, he added.
Regarding the new bridge, the ministry defined it as the country’s first priority. “The goal is for the project for a new bridge to move beyond the analysis stage and enter real preparation for construction with clearly defined steps and responsibilities”, he said. This bridge, just like the existing one, will be road-rail. Bulgaria and Romania submitted the proposal in September 2023 and a feasibility study was launched in January 2024.
Bulgaria is also looking to build two more bridges across the Danube. One will be between Nikopol (BG) and Turnu Magurele (RO), 135 kilometres west of the Rusa-Giurgiu border crossings. The second one will link Silistra (BG) and Călărași (RO), 140 kilometres east of the existing ones. The need for more rail border crossings between Bulgaria and Romania have become more apparent in the past few years, with a massive growth in trade since 2013.