Bridge links Bulgaria and Romania

A €275 million bridge linking Bulgaria and Romania has opened to traffic at the end of a six-year building project.

Financed in part by the European Union, the Vidin-Calafat bridge was built by Spanish-based FCC

The 1.9km bridge carries both road and rail traffic, comprising a four-lane motorway, a bicycle path, two pedestrian walkways and central railway tracks.

FCC also built the railway station access, including a new goods station, the refurbishment of an existing passenger station and 17km of new railway track. The two governments expect the bridge to be used by more than 100,000 vehicles a year.

It will be managed by a Bulgarian-Romanian joint venture. This transport link will channel all goods and passenger traffic between southern Europe – Greece, Macedonia and Turkey – and the north – Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary – without passing through non-EU countries.

The Vidin-Calafat bridge is part of the Pan-European Corridor IV, which runs from Dresden, Germany, to Istanbul, Turkey, and links to two major European ports ­– Istanbul, and Thessaloniki, Greece.

The bridge will reduce travel time between the Bulgaria and Romania. Previously, Calafat and Vidin were connected by a ferry which did not run until it was fully loaded with trucks. The journey and customs procedures lasted up to three hours, but with the new bridge, the travel time will be less than 15 minutes.

Before the bridge, the only other connection between Bulgaria and Romania was the Ruse bridge to the east, around 55km from Vidin, which will now be refurbished.

Of the €275 million budget, Bulgaria covered €225 million and Romania €50 million. Around three-quarters of the jobs created by the project were filled by Bulgarian workers.

The Prime Ministers of both countries, Plamen Oresharski from Bulgaria and Victor Ponta from Romania, attended the inauguration of the bridge, along with Johannes Han, EU Commissioner for Regional Policy; José Luis Tapia, Spanish Ambassador to Bulgaria; Fernando Moreno, chairman of FCC Construction; and Javier Lázaro, FCC’s deputy general director of Spain and Algeria, who was head of this project.