On 24 October Prime Minister Boyko Borisov of Bulgaria, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta and the European commissioner for Regional Policy, Johannes Hahn, visited the site where FCC Construcción is building the Vidin-Calafat Bridge over the Danube. The bridge, designed to join Bulgaria and Romania, has now reached its final stage.

These official authorities were accompanied by Luis Tapia, ambassador of the Kingdom of Spain in Bulgaria; José Mayor Oreja, chairman of FCC Construcción; the assistant general manager for Europe and CEO of ALPINE, Alejandro Tuya, and other company officials.

The visit consisted of a walking tour of the bridge to inspect the cross-border railway structure, which is already hooked up.

The Bulgarian prime minister asserted that the bridge is one of the most important projects supported by the EU, and the prime minister of Romania acknowledged the excellent work FCC Construcción is doing to make the bridge a reality.

This second bridge over the Danube is Bulgaria’s biggest construction project, measuring a total of 1,951 metres long. The project consists in the construction of a road and rail bridge with four lanes, a single set of railway tracks, a bike lane and two pedestrian/service walkways. The project also includes the construction of the necessary road and rail infrastructure, such as a new freight station, 17 new kilometres of track, the refurbishment of the existing passenger station and seven flying junctions.

It’s now only a few months until the bridge is finished. All that’s left is to cast the 0.4-metre-long closing segments of the last span of the bridge. They will be cast in situ after the last surveyor’s check of project geometry, which is scheduled for the upcoming weeks.

The infrastructure forms part of Corridor IV, which runs from Dresden, Germany, to Istanbul, Turkey. Over 600 people, 75% of whom are Bulgarian, are working on the project.

The budget for the Danube bridge and the approaches from the Bulgarian side is over 162 million euros, from non-refundable European resources provided by ISPA (Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-accession) and financing from the European Investment Bank, France and Germany.