SOFIA (Bulgaria), May 26 (SeeNews) – Bulgaria will aim to complete the construction of Struma motorway linking Sofia with the border with Greece in 2023, regional development minister Nikolay Nankov said on Friday.
If the country fails to do so, it will lose EU funding for the project, Nankov told parliament during weekly Q&A session aired live by public TV broadcaster BNT.
Problems with the tendering procedure have caused significant delays and Bulgaria faces the risk of losing EU financing if the delays persist.
The initial tender procedure for the Zheleznitsa tunnel was cancelled in April because the National Company Strategic Infrastructure Projects had misinformed the candidates that they could place offers higher than the indicative value of the project. Additionally, the technical offer of one of the participants in the tender was lost.
The construction of the motorway is divided into four sections, of which three have already been completed: Dolna Dikanya – Dupnitsa (16.8 km), Dupnitsa – Blagoevgrad (37.4 km) and Sandanski-Kulata checkpoint at the border with Greece (14.7 km).
The remaining stretch, Blagoevgrad – Sandanski, dubbed Lot 3, is 62 kilometres long. Lot 3 includes the construction of the 2 km-long Zheleznitsa tunnel, which would be Bulgaria's longest road tunnel.
The tender for the construction of Zheleznitsa tunnel, with an indicative value of 250 million levs ($136.2 million/128 million euro), would be relaunched soon, Nankov said last week.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)