EC Wants New Danube Bridge Btw Romania, Bulgaria Operational By End 2010

The cross-border bridge over Danube River between Romanian city of Calafat and Bulgaria’s Vidin should be operational by the end of 2010, European Commission official Jeroen van Oel told the Bulgarian side during a meeting on the project, quoted by Bulgarian daily “Dnevnik.

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The Bulgarian Transportation Ministry announced in February a four-month setback in the construction of the Danube Bridge, due to discrepancies between Romanian and Bulgarian legislation.

Bulgaria’s deputy transportation minister, Vessela Gospodinova however, told the European Commission official that the construction has a new timetable and the bridge will be completed by April 2010.

The 1971 meter-long bridge, which is to link the two countries by road and railway, is a key element of a European transport corridor from the German city of Dresden to Istanbul in Turkey.

Total construction costs rise to EUR236 million.

Funding came from PHARE and ISPA programs of the EU, from the European Investment Bank and other international financial institutions. Some national input is also to be found in the financing of the bridge.

Bulgaria and Romania, which both joined the European Union on January 1, signed an agreement to build the Vidin-Calafat Bridge in 2000, but various bureaucratic obstacles delayed the project.

At the moment, the only bridge on the 610 kilometers section of the Danube that forms the Bulgarian-Romanian border links Ruse in Bulgaria and Giurgiu in Romania by road and railway.

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