2024-07-29 17:41:42
It’s not about changing the interest, but about how to get the job done. This is how the Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia, Hristiyan Mitskoski, answered a journalist’s question about how the transfer of funds from the railway will take place. Corridor 8 to Corridor 10, as he and the Minister of Transport of North Macedonia, Alexander Nikoloski, have repeatedly stated.
“As things stand, it would be crazy to agree to a long-term project that ends in a half-tunnel, a dead end, and spend half a billion euros of people’s money. The value of the project is EUR 560 million – EUR 360 million credit and EUR 200 million grant. The budget for this project has been determined, but it can easily become 750 – 800 million euros, I say this as an engineer. This means 500 million credits and 200 million European taxpayers’ money for a 24 km road, with 22 tunnels, which will end in a half-built tunnel, without knowing what will happen on the Bulgarian side, because there is no clear project whether the tunnel will be continued. We say it should be done properly,” Mickoski said after a visit to Stip. His remarks were broadcast online on the government channel.
In his words, the change in the management of North Macedonia took place in time, “so that prevention can be done, instead of treating the consequences afterwards”.
“We say, let’s see the project from the Bulgarian side. There isn’t one. Let’s build it (the railway line), but why finish (the project on the territory of North Macedonia) with a half-tunnel. Let’s make it (the railway line) to the Black Sea as envisioned by NATO’s strategic corridor. Let it be as it should be and I think we will find an understanding. I do not politicize this as our eastern neighbor does. They politicize it for their own internal party purposes. This is an engineering problem, it has nothing to do with politics. I want us to do Corridor 8. I’m the first to do it, but let it be like the people. It is irresponsible to enter into an adventure that has no end or is not clear when that end will be. I’m sorry that our eastern neighbor is turning everything into a political topic”, said Mickoski, according to whom, as neighbors, North Macedonia and Bulgaria “must support each other and not everything should be made into politics”.
Mickoski himself and the Minister of Transport Alexander Nikoloski said in recent weeks that for North Macedonia the railway Corridor 8 is not a priority and the government will insist to donors that part of the funds be redirected to Corridor 10, which connects Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, North Macedonia and Hungary with Greece.
“Trans-European Corridor 8 is not just connecting the Republic of North Macedonia with Bulgaria, but aims to increase the geostrategic autonomy of the European Union (EU). It is also becoming a key logistics route along NATO’s southern flank from the Adriatic to the Black Sea and is of great importance in the current geopolitical moment. Refusal to build the main components of Corridor VIII weakens the collective security of the Alliance,” states the position of the Bulgarian government.
The head of the EU Delegation to North Macedonia, David Geer, indicated in an interview over the weekend that the EU sees a need, supports the construction of both rail corridors and believes that Corridor 8 and Corridor 10 can be implemented. In an interview with BNR last week, the special representative of Germany for the Western Balkans, Manuel Saratsin, pointed out that “transport corridors in Europe are within the competence of Brussels” and believes that “it is not in the power of a single country to change European priorities in transport policy”. .
On December 22, 2023, a public contract was announced for the contractor of the third section of the railway from Corridor 8 on the territory of North Macedonia – from Kriva Palanka to the border with Bulgaria. According to the then director of railway infrastructure Zoran Trifunovski, the construction of this section of the railway. the line should start in 2025.
“This is also one of the biggest challenges in the construction sector, not only in North Macedonia, because a railway must be built on the territory of the state. a line with a length of 23.4 km, with 22 tunnels with a total length of 9 km and 52 bridges with a total length of 5 km. Such a thing has not yet been done in our country, but also in Europe,” said Trifunovski at the time. The deadline for the public procurement ended on the day the new government of North Macedonia took office, and according to the country’s state audit, because of the delay in work on the project, the country could lose European funds.
The transnational East-West transport axis (Corridor 8) stretches from the port of Bari in Italy to the ports of Varna and Burgas in Bulgaria. The central part of this 315-kilometer pan-European corridor passes through North Macedonia – Kichevo, Skopje, Kumanovo, Belyakovce and Kriva Palanka. However, there are no connections in the western end (from Kichevo to the border with Albania) and in the eastern end (from Kumanovo to the border with Bulgaria).
The total length of the eastern end of the railway Corridor 8 is 88.2 kilometers, of which 34 kilometers, i.e. the section Belyakovce – Kriva Palanka, is being built with financial assistance from the EU, provided through the Investment Framework for the Western Balkans, with a grant of 75 million euros financed by it, supplemented by national funds. For the completion of the eastern end of railway Corridor 8 to the border with Bulgaria, financing has been secured from a pre-accession grant from the EU – “Financial Framework for the Western Balkans” and two loans from the EBRD and the EIB. On the territory of North Macedonia, the project is being built according to European standards, for to make the railway line compatible with railway lines in Europe, announced BTA.
The official start of the construction works on the railway part of Corridor 8 on the territory of North Macedonia in the section Kumanovo-Belyakovce-Kriva Palanka was given in October 2022, near Kumanovo with the participation of the then prime ministers of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia, Galab Donev and Dimitar Kovachevski.