In 2019 during Boyko Borrisov's visit to Serbia as prime minister he announced that "from today Serbia has access to the ports of Burgas and Varna and from here to Istanbul there is no traffic light in sight". He was referring to The Europe Highway, a project that is meant to link Sofia to Belgrade and establish a direct speedway link to Western Europe.
But Borissov's comments date back to a time when the last stretch of the Highway, from the border town of Kalotina leading to Belgrade, was finished and parts of the Bulgarian side were under construction.
Six years on and the situation looks very different. Borissov is no longer prime minister and Serbian president Aleksander Vučić is facing a public backlash through widespread protests. But one thing remains constant - Bulgaria's transport infrastructure is still not on track. The road from Serbia to Varna is still riddled with strife and obstacles - there is no Hemus highway or Black Sea highway, and there is yet to be any Europe Highway - which is supposed to exist from the Kalotina customs point to Sofia, but is still under construction.
This could all change. By the fall of this year, or at the end of the year at the latest, there should be a completed highway on Bulgarian soil, the third one after Thrace and Maritza. But construction on the Europe Highway has hit a bumpy patch and the initially planned 120 mln. levs cost has now been revised upwards of 580 mln levs. This comes with the added cost that parts of the Highway are more like normal two-lane roads as opposed to a proper highway.
How did Serbia get ahead?
A connection between Western Europe with Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey to Delhi has long been on the agenda and yet the only territory lacking a motorway is Bulgaria.
Serbia managed to construct a total of 105 km between the custom point of Kalotina and Nis, which connects to the 230 km highway Nis-Belgrade and is part of the A1, which is the longest in Serbia and connects Hungary to Nis, albeit not yet complete.
Construction of the road from Belgrade to Bulgaria involved Bulgarian companies. In September of 2017 about 30 km were completed between the cities of Nis and Dimitrovgrad by Trace Group Holding. The Bulgarian company completed a parallel road between Pirot - Bela Palanka with a length of 22 km and to be used as an alternative to the highway.
What did Bulgaria do?
In the autumn of 2017, the Agency of Road Infrastructure (ARI) finally managed to announce public tenders for constructing more than half of the Europe Highway. Contracts were signed about a year later. A third tender was issued in February of 2021 with a contract signed in December of the same year and with that construction was underway.
In terms of execution and timeframe this was a remarkable achievement by Bulgarian standards, especially when you consider that tenders get lost in the vortex of time and sometimes years pass by before a contract is even signed. Despite this administrational "miracle" there have been serious problems in planning and organizing the three sections; these issues concerned both the administration and the road companies themselves.
Construction of the Dragoman and Slivnitsa section, which was under contract with GBS, was completed relatively smoothly. Just 2 years after signatures, the ARI was handed the keys to the highway. The same did not apply, however, to another part of the project - between Kalotina and Dragoman. This was a tender from the same period with the Austrian Strabag and Bitumina GmbH-Bulgaria, which itself is the property of an offshore company registered in the UAE - HPMC Holdings Limited owned by Hristo Atanasov and Stoyan Goranov. Sources of Capital from the construction sector comment that this company is tied to Veliko Zhelev, who owns Hidrostroy, VDH and Putstroy VDH.
One absurd story illustrates the chaotic nature of the organization behind the project. In 2020 it emerged that a planned overpass for big mammals, like wolves and bears, which was also a requirement of the project, could not be completed because the state did not expropriate the territory on time and there was a phantom railroad nearby. The railroad in question was planned, but construction on it was far away. This resulted in the overpass only being partially completed, illustrating how uncoordinated the country's institutions are when planning an infrastructure project.
Everything on this part of the project was supposed to be completed in 2021, but it took 2 more years for it to become useable - and then only partially. This unnecessary slow pace was mainly due to administrative blunders. These were further highlighted by temporary minister Shishkov, who stated that nearly 100 m of the project did not exist, namely the connection with the customs point at Kalotina.
A check with the ARI shows that the contract in question of Shtrabag was declared fulfilled only in early February 2025. So just 14.5 km of road after six years of suffering. In this section, the much vaunted "Europe Highway" is not even a highway with a G27 gauge (i.e. 27 m wide - two active lanes in each direction and one emergency lane), but a road with a G20 gauge.
The last lot, which is still under construction and reaches Sofia, is also delayed and, according to the annexes, the implementation deadline is a further year behind. The reason is that the expropriations have still not been completed, retrospectively, and there is no construction permit. In August 2024, the regional ministry, then headed by acting minister Violeta Koritarova-Kasabova, announced that it was expropriating land for the section. This sounds ridiculous, considering that the contract was signed three years earlier. GBS is again building on this section, but in conjunction with Obonato Build. The company had indirect ties to GP Group. However, since February 2025, it has had a new majority owner - Vasil Gardakov.
The bill comes down to?
The funding for "Europe" came from both EU programs and the state budget. The section from the border to Dragoman is co-financed under the Connecting Europe Facility, and from Dragoman to Slivnitsa - under the Operational Program "Transport and Transport Infrastructure" 2014 - 2020. The project for the last section to the capital will be included in the "Transport Connectivity 2021 - 2027" program, and in mid-March the road agency announced an order for the preparation of an application form for applying for the funds.
The contracts swelled over time, with the main justification being inflation and the popular indexation of contracts. The section from Kalotina to Dragoman has increased in price by 46 million levs (from 137.5 to 184 million levs), with the contract having as many as 11 annexes on terms and payments. Against this background, the increase in price of the lot between Slivnitsa and Dragoman by 8 million leva (from 97 to 105 million levs) seems insignificant. The increase in price of the GBS section from Slivnitsa to the Sofia Ring Road, which already has seven annexes, is much greater - 65 million levs (from 222 to 287 million levs). Thus, the total amount for the highway has increased by nearly 120 million levs from the initial contract.
And although with a delay and more expensive, the 50 kilometers are ultimately expected to be completed by the end of the year, or in a total of eight years, which is a good time frame compared to all the other delayed major projects in the country. It's not like the Serbs were faster.
And a bit on the side
A new project was announced just last week from the ARI with a tender for the highway between Ruse and Veliko Tarnovo. There has been much anticipation about this 60 km connection. However, something was not quite right with the announcement - and that is the price. A mindboggling 2.9 billion levs will be dedicated to the construction of 60 km of road, which is twice as much as another section of 76 km of the same project that was announced for 1.5 billion levs. Incredibly, when just a year ago Capital questioned the ARI about the cost of the 60 km section of the project they cited 550 mln levs, roughly a third of the price.
In 2019 during Boyko Borrisov's visit to Serbia as prime minister he announced that "from today Serbia has access to the ports of Burgas and Varna and from here to Istanbul there is no traffic light in sight". He was referring to The Europe Highway, a project that is meant to link Sofia to Belgrade and establish a direct speedway link to Western Europe.
But Borissov's comments date back to a time when the last stretch of the Highway, from the border town of Kalotina leading to Belgrade, was finished and parts of the Bulgarian side were under construction.
