20 years after making the decision to erect a bridge across the Danube between Calafat (Romania) and Vidin (Bulgaria), the project is still not completed. The bridge itself has been built, but Romanian authorities kept postponing the modernization of the rail link that connects to the main railway network.
The signing of the technical project and the execution of rehabilitation works is scheduled to take place at the beginning of next year, according to the statements of the officials of CFR SA, the state-owned company that manages the railway infrastructure in Romania, for Railway Pro.
This is a 95-kilometre section that connects Golenți station, located 5 km away from the bridge, and Craiova (south of Romania), which is in an advanced state of degradation. “Concerning the modernization of the Craiova-Golenți railway line, a component of the <Rehabilitation of the Craiova-Calafat railway line, a part of the Orient/EastMediterranean Corridor> project, CFR SA is currently in the process of preparing the Feasibility Study”, said CFR SA in its answer for Railway PRO.
Company officials declared that following the completion of the feasibility study, they will begin to prepare the tender documentation for the technical project, the execution of works and consulting, in the period of June – August 2019. Afterwards, in the period August – December 2019, the National Authority for Public Acquisitions (ANAP) will publish the documentation and validation, including the submission and evaluation of bids. “The signing of the agreement for the technical project and the execution of works is estimated for the first quarter of 2020”, said the officials of the infrastructure company.
Given the current state of the railway line, the average number of trains transiting the New Europe Bridge on a daily basis is extremely low: two passenger trains and six freight trains, according to official statistics.
A history that begins in 1999
Let’s see how this happened. Everything started on December 10, 1999, at the Helsinki Conference, when
Romania and Bulgaria were invited to start negotiations for the accession to the European Union.
Subsequently, Bucharest and Sofia governments decided to erect a new bridge over the Danube, in addition to the existing one, from Giurgiu to Ruse. On February 7 , 2000, the joint minutes of the meeting of the Romanian and Bulgarian delegations were signed in Brussels, in the presence of the special coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, Bodo Hombach, and the EU Enlargement Commissioner, Gunter Verheugen. They also established the location of the future bridge: Calafat – Vidin.
On March 27 of the same year, the prime ministers of the two countries, Mugur Isărescu and Ivan Kostov, signed the Joint Declaration on the construction of the bridge. Afterwards, the specialised departments of the European Commission prepared an agreement on the technical, legal and organisational details of the project, which was signed on June 5th in Bucharest.
The official documents of the time underlined that the European Union was very interested in the construction of this road and rail infrastructure facility. The explanation was the effects of the war in former Yugoslavia, including the bombing of the Novi Sad bridge by the US troops. The partners agreed that the construction of the bridge in Calafat – Vidin will be funded exclusively by the Bulgarian party, and Romania was only under the obligation to build the connections to the bridge and the access infrastructure – road and railway – on its territory.
Fading enthusiasm
If during the early 2000 things happened very quickly, the momentum decreased considerably later on and works only commenced in 2007.
The construction of the bridge was postponed due to obstacles qualified as “bureaucratic”, noted the European Commission. According to the statements of the Romanian side, the project of the connection infrastructure to the bridge could not have been developed on the left bank of the river due to the fact that the Bucharest authorities were not aware of the shape of the future bridge and that the Bulgarian side made changes to the original project.
On the other hand, Sofia considered that before anything else they had to settle some issues related to the excessive fees charged by the Romanian side for the crossing of the Giurgiu – Ruse Bridge. Finally, on the 30th of January 2007, an agreement was signed between the Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications in Sofia and the Spanish contractor FCC Construction for the construction of the bridge. The total value of the investment contracted by the Bulgarians was of EUR 268,857,940, from which EUR 225,806,452 for construction works.
On the other bank of the river, the Romanian side provided funding for the technical project and the construction of the related bridge access infrastructure on the Romanian territory amounting to EUR 70,591,324.7, from which EUR 66,900,285.7 for construction works. This amount was directed to the successful bidder, the consortium made of AZVI SA Spain (leader) and VIMAC SA (member), from which the contribution of the European Commission was of EUR 33,827,745. The difference of EUR 2,798,240, from which the contribution of the EU was of EUR 2,098,680, was assigned for consulting services/ supervision contract signed with the Consortium made of Italferr S.p.A. (leader), DIWI Consult International GmbH (member) and TECNIC Consulting Engineering România SRL (member).
Works began eight years later
Works to the bridge commenced on 14 May 2007, when the Bulgarian Prime Minister set the first headstone at the base of the second bridge over the Danube between the two countries, which was scheduled for completion by 2011.
The inauguration of the bridge took place only on 14 June 2013, attended by Johannes Hahn, the European
Commissioner for Regional Policy, as the project was funded by ISPA funds. The New Europe Bridge, located at kilometre 796 of the river, is part of the pan-European transport corridor connecting the German City of Dresden to Istanbul (Turkey). The project belongs to the category of regional infrastructure investments of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. When the decision was made to build this bridge, it was considered that the Giurgiu – Ruse roadway and railway bridge (downstream of Calafat – Vidin) will not be able to handle the increasing merchandise and passenger traffic estimated after the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union, on 1 January 2007.
Designed to provide road and rail transport between Vidin and Calafat, the bridge was designed to be a vital link on an important priority line of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). “This bridge creates favourable conditions to promote combined transports, thanks to the naval-road-rail logistic solutions that protect the environment”, said in 2008 the Bulgarian Deputy Minister of Transport, Vesela Gospodinova.
Until the construction of the bridge, the Danube River was regularly crossed by ferryboat lines between Calafat and Vidin. However, this service was not considered able to deal with all transport needs between Bulgaria, Romania and the more remote countries.
For the moment, the project is a failure
The bridge should have facilitated long-haul traffic and trade between South East Europe, Turkey and Central Europe. According to the initial forecasts, investments in this project should have stimulated local economy and generated jobs.
Far from this, six years after the inauguration of the bridge which is crossed daily by an average number of two passenger trains (only one train, actually, making a return trip on the same day) and six freight trains. By comparison, the Craiova – Calafat line operates eight passenger trains and one freight train per day on average. It should be noted that the rail freight traffic is the driver of economic growth, while the passenger traffic is more of a social service.
This bridge has rather isolated the town of Calafat on the Romanian Bank of the Danube, instead of connecting it to the European transport corridor, and this is because the railway and the road to Bulgaria bypass the town at a distance of 12 km. In Calafat, unemployment has risen to alarming rates and the population aged because the young left the town looking for employment elsewhere.
On the 95-km section between Golenți (the terminus point of the newly-built railway link to the bridge) and Craiova (a city located on the important railway network of Romania) traffic conditions are difficult for the trains. On a 57-km section of this line, the speed of trains is limited to 30 km/hour, due to the extremely poor condition of the infrastructure. On the rest of 38 km, the maximum speed is 70 km/hour.
On the other bank of the river, the railway and the road pass through Vidin. But here is also no place for prosperity because, from the moment of taking the political decision and until the construction of the bridge, things have changed considerably in the area from the geopolitical point of view.
The “bomb” in former Yugoslavia had long been defused, and Serbia is a candidate for the accession to the Europe Union, therefore it is no longer bypassed by freight companies. On the other hand, even if from Vidin to Sofia the railway line is electrified, there are weight restrictions given the winding lines through the Balkans. Therefore, freight trains must be “broken” in two to continue their trip, which generates additional costs both for traction and for the payment of infrastructure charges.
Characteristics of the New Europe Bridge
According to the project, the total length of the road was set at 1,440 kilometres, and of the railway line at 2,480 kilometres. The bridge has two lanes in each direction, one bicycle lane and a railway line.
The Bulgarians built the four-lane railway and road bridge, a new railway terminal for freight, seven kilometres of new railway and four new road junctions, while Romania built multiple road junction segments for the access to the bridge, five kilometres of railway and a terminal station for joint traffic control and toll purposes.
The Calafat-Vidin bridge is a combined structure supported at the ends on three abutments, two of them
on the Bulgarian bank and one on the Romanian bank. Abutment A-1 is located at the end of the railway viaduct, abutment A-2 is located at the end of railway viaduct and abutment A-3 on the Romanian bank is common.
12 piles are located between the abutments, four of them being located in the Danube waterway, with a 180-m opening between them. Abutments and piles are massive and founded on bored piles. The decks of the bridge and passages part of the access infrastructure consist of prestressed concrete prefabricated beams, moved and installed with the beam launcher.
The technology used for the construction of the bridge, called “camelback” by the experts, saves construction materials and provides higher seismic resistance. The principle at the basis of this technology is similar to bags attached to saddles fastened on the back of camels: any weight in the bag on one side is balanced with a counterweight in the bag on the opposite side.
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