site.btaTrade Union Opposes Division of Public Rail Service Between Different Operators

The Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) opposes the division of the country’s rail passenger service into three lots. The trade union commented at a press conference on the conditions proposed by the Transport Ministry for the award of rail services in the country.

The draft envisages that the procurement will be on a regional basis, in three lots - western, northern and southern, with each lot to be served by a depot in its territory/region. In addition, it proposes that the rolling stock purchased after 2009 by BDZ will be made available for free to the operator of the respective lot.

We are against the division into lots and there is no reason, no requirement from anyone to do this - neither from the European Commission, nor under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, CITUB President Plamen Dimitrov told a news conference. The fact that the Bulgarian market is small makes it possible to outsource the service to one carrier, he said. “We do not see any public need for this,” Dimitrov said. According to him, by dividing the service into lots it will not become better because of the small market and because of the splitting of the subsidy into three, which will lead to additional problems.

The leader of the Railway Workers Trade Union, Petar Bunev, commented that at the moment the fight is all about the subsidy. He said that a European regulation allows countries with a small market of less than 23 million train kilometres, (Bulgaria’s is 19 million, to directly award the service to whoever they see fit.

Bunev said that there is a market assessment which says it is better not to split the rail service among different operators. According to the trade union, Bulgaria should take the opportunity to award the public procurement directly to one contractor in 2025, and the only railway company in the country that has the experience and the staff is the passenger division of BDZ. 

Bunev said that on Tuesday the trade unions will participate in a public consultation organized by the Minister of Transport and they will fight until the end against another robbery of the Bulgarian public.