FCC has received the Award of Merit at the Engineering News Record (ENR) Global Best Project awards for its construction of the New Europe Bridge. José Luis Álvarez Poyatos, Technical Service Corporate Deputy Manager, collected the prize in the Bridges & Tunnels category at a ceremony during ENR’s Global Construction Summit in New York on 13th May.

The New Europe Bridge, which took six years to build, was supported by the Bulgarian Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications. It has been widely recognised as a strong symbol of what can be achieved through cross-border collaboration between EU countries. The 1.9km bridge connecting Vidin in Bulgaria, and Calafat in Romania has reduced journey times from three hours to just ten minutes.

Forming part of the European Transport Corridor IV, the bridge will be used by hundreds of thousands of vehicles each year. With its unique concept and design it combines a road and railway bridge in a single structure. FCC also built the railway station accesses, which include a new goods station, the refurbishment of an existing passenger station and 17 kilometres of new railway track. All of the construction was completed construction without disrupting the 13 million existing tonnes of river traffic each year.

José Luis Álvarez Poyatos, FCC's Technical Service Corporate Deputy Manager who accepted the award on behalf of the company, stated "It is an honour for FCC that our work on such an important project has received this recognition. The bridge was built entirely by FCC, a very complicated project which had no margin for error, and its excellent results were due to fantastic teamwork".

The bridge represents a total investment of 275 million euro, with Bulgaria covering the cost for 225 million euro and Romania 50 million euro. The project created a thousand jobs, of which around three-quarters were filled by Bulgarian workers.

Last year the project also received an award conferred by the American Segmental Bridge Institute (ASBI), acknowledging the quality of the engineering on the Vidin-Calafat Bridge.