Outgoing Government Approves €25m to Continue Work on Key Railway Projects

The Council of Ministers has approved additional expenditure of €25 million under the budget of the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The funds will be allocated to the National Railway Infrastructure Company (NRIC) to cover payments for activities already carried out under strategic railway projects financed by the European Union and the national budget, the government press office said on February 11.

The decision is directly linked to the implementation of the methodology for adjusting the price of public procurement contracts in response to inflation, adopted by Council of Ministers Decree No. 290 of 2022.

As the manager of Bulgaria’s railway infrastructure and beneficiary of EU- and nationally funded projects worth more than €2 billion, NRIC does not have the capacity to cover these additional costs from its own resources.

Providing the necessary funding will allow for timely payments to contractors and help prevent the risk of delays or a complete suspension of construction works along key railway corridors.

The financing is intended to ensure the full and effective absorption of EU funds. The government warned that failure to provide the resources at this stage would lead to significant delays, financial corrections, a potential loss of European funding and a substantially higher burden on the state budget in the future.