site.btaTransport Minister Calls for Accelerated Agreement with Romania, Greece on New Bridge Infrastructure

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Communications, Grozdan Karadjov, on Thursday called for swift coordination between Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece to build additional bridge infrastructure linking the three countries. He was speaking during a trilateral meeting with Greece Alternate Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Konstantinos Kyranakis, and Romania’s State Secretary at the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, Horatiu Cozma, the Bulgarian Transport Ministry reported.

Currently, only two bridges connect Bulgaria and Romania along their 475-kilometre shared stretch of the Danube River, a transport shortfall Karadjov described as a new Iron Curtain within the European Union. According to him, relying on a single crossing point, such as the Ruse-Giurgiu bridge, causes systemic vulnerabilities.

“When all traffic is concentrated at a single point, any congestion along the North-South [transport] corridor paralyses capacity. That’s neither efficient nor a sustainable transport architecture. We urgently need at least one more crossing further East, for example, a bridge between Silistra and Calarasi,” Karadjov said.

He stressed that connecting Bucharest with Athens and Alexandroupolis with Odesa should be a shared priority for all three countries and emphasized the need for genuine, not merely declarative, transport integration.

Kyranakis expressed support for the initiative, underlining the importance of concrete action in the short term. Cozma noted the strategic importance of the Alexandroupolis–Ruse–Giurgiu–Moldova corridor for Bucharest. 

During the meeting, the parties agreed to hold a technical session in Thessaloniki, Northern Greece, in early November, bringing together infrastructure experts from the three countries. The goal is to draft joint project proposals to be submitted to the European Commission by the end of 2025 under suitable EU funding programmes, Bulgaria’s Transport Ministry added.

The acceleration of transport connectivity in Southeast Europe was also the focus of a ministerial conference held earlier in the day in Sofia, hosted by Karadjov. At the opening of the forum, he said that regional connectivity is at the heart of Bulgaria’s Presidency of the South-East European Cooperation Process and is a key driver of economic development, security, and the region’s integration into European networks.