Since 2016, the project for the Plovdiv railway junction has been approved and coordinated several times by the Plovdiv Municipality, and now they saw a problem with its implementation. This was said by the Minister of Transport and Communications Georgi Gvozdejkov during an inspection of the construction activities around Plovdiv Central Station.
"In these eight years there have been eight governments, two mayors and two municipal councils. It is interesting how during this long period nobody has indicated that there is a problem here, but they remembered at the moment when the election campaign started", Minister Gvozdeykov stressed.
He explained that Bulgaria will lose EU funds under the Connecting Europe Facility if the project is stopped or delayed now. "At the moment we are facing two serious cases - to stop the reconstruction of the site or to continue our work, because we have to absorb the funds and build this important infrastructure project," Gvozdeykov added.
"If we start work in early December, colleagues have assured me that within 6 months the work on the Concrete Bridge will be completed. The train traffic will be suspended for only 30 days and we will need another 5 months to complete the project," the Transport Minister pointed out and added that the most reasonable approach is to have a dialogue between the institutions because there is only 1 year left to absorb the funds to complete the project.
Minister Gvozdeykov said that some of the trains to be purchased by 2026 with funds from the National Recovery and Sustainability Plan will be stationed in Plovdiv. Their purpose is to serve the urban railway in the City under the hills. "Plovdiv has become a very serious economic centre that is developing at a high pace. It deserves to have transport that enables citizens and visitors to travel normally and safely to any part of the city, and that is the purpose of the projects we are implementing here," Gvozdeykov further said.
