After Bulgarian media reported yesterday that "Bulgaria is fully ready to sign an agreement with North Macedonia and start the construction of a cross-border railway tunnel along Corridor 8", the Macedonian Transportation ministry accused the Bulgarian side of distorting the facts regarding the construction of Corridor 8, BGNES reports.

The reaction came after information from Bulgarian Transportation Minister Grozdan Karadzhov, who said that "Corridor 8 depends on the will and political will of the Republic of North Macedonia."

"We have sent an agreement on the only common thing we have - that is the tunnel, which is on the border itself. This tunnel is sort of "fragmented" from the border into two almost equal parts - half is in the territory of the North Macedonia, the other half is on Bulgarian territory. We have already concluded once an agreement with Skopje that this will be a joint facility and we will manage it together. The agreement was concluded a long time ago. Now the new agreement is ready and has been sent to North Macedonia, but it is waiting for their approval. However, this new agreement has not been approved for three months now. That's why today we gathered all the diplomats who are representatives of the EU and NATO countries - because this is a corridor under NATO as well, it goes from Italy and passes through Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria, and reaches the Black Sea," Karadzhov explained.

"The Republic of Bulgaria is once again distorting the facts," the Skopje-based Transportation ministry said in a statement sent to Nezavisim newspaper in response to a question on how the agreement with Bulgaria on the construction of the tunnel and the whole railway project, which is to link the two neighbouring countries, is progressing.

North Macedonia's transport ministry said that "the government is strongly committed to the completion of Corridor 8". It explained that after receiving a request from Bulgaria to reach an agreement on the joint construction of the tunnel solution as a border point between the two countries, the government in Skopje immediately set up a working body at the highest level, composed of Alexander Nikoloski, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport, Timcho Mutsunski, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gordana Dimitrijeska-Kochoska, Minister of Finance, and the Director of Railway Infrastructure, Siniša Ivanovski, a body that is to work on clarifying the details with the Bulgarian side for the implementation of this project."

"After repeated requests and attempts on our part to organize a joint meeting of the working groups, there has been no official response from the Republic of Bulgaria to organize a meeting and reach an agreement on the implementation of this important European corridor. Also, the already planned meeting between the directors of the two railway companies was cancelled by the director of Bulgarian Railways," the Ministry of Transportation also stated.

According to them, "in March, the European Commission, the EU Delegation to North Macedonia, the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Secretariat of the Transport Community were informed that the Macedonian side was concerned about the information presented to the Bulgarian public stating that due to lack of financial resources, the Republic of Bulgaria would not finance the reconstruction of the Sofia-Radomir-Pernik railway line as part of Corridor 8."

"In the spirit of regional cooperation and development, and as a significant contribution to the economic development of the region, we expect the Republic of Bulgaria to finally take a stand and respond to the requests of the government and the Ministry of Transport to organize a meeting of the working groups and organize the process for the implementation of this regional project," the Ministry of Transport said, adding that currently North Macedonia is the only one of the three Corridor 8 countries working on the railway section.
"Only the Republic of Macedonia is working on construction. Deeds are one thing, words are another, unfortunately deeds are lacking when it comes our neighbours," concludes the position of the Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Macedonia. | BGNES