With Bulgaria's consistent efforts, the Sofia-Skopje railway line has already been included for financing in the Connecting Europe Facility 2028-2034. This is a guarantee for the full completion of the strategic Corridor 8 on Bulgarian territory, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Communications Grozdan Karadjov at a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Transport Community, which was held today in Brussels. The forum was attended by European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism Apostolos Zidzikostas, ministers from the European Union and the Western Balkan countries, representatives of the EC, etc.
The projects on the TEN-T network must prioritize increasing the capacity on the north-south corridors, which can become engines of growth, sustainability and energy security. The Deputy Prime Minister called for stronger connectivity with the Black Sea, which will open up new logistics models, support solidarity corridors and integrate the region into global trade flows.
“The fundamental question facing us today is not only which projects to choose to implement or how much money to mobilize. We need to replace independent national efforts with coordinated European actions”, Grozdan Karadjov was categorical.
“Despite our common ambitions, TEN-T too often functions as a collection of national projects, rather than as a single European system. Our task is not just to build infrastructure, but a system that functions as a single network”, added the Deputy Prime Minister.
He stressed the need for synchronized deadlines for all cross-border projects. “Progress on one side of the border should not be hindered by stagnation on the other side,” he explained.
According to him, interoperability cannot depend on bilateral negotiations or temporary exceptions. It must apply to every part of every TEN-T corridor - from its starting point to its end point. “We also need fast, predictable and coordinated permit issuance procedures. If procedures take longer than construction, we lose competitiveness long before the project is completed,” Grozdan Karadjov also emphasized.