Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova, Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Nikolay Nankov and Minister of Environment and Waters Neno Dimov held meetings in Brussels with Karmenu Vella, EU Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries and Corina Crețu EU Commissioner for Regional Policy.
The Bulgarian Ministers briefed New Europe about the latest developments in the construction of a “missing” section of the Sofia-Thessaloniki Struma Motorway (lot 3.2).The construction permit and the selection of the contractor must be done at the latest in April 2019, this should happen to fit the project into the expenses of EU operational program “Bulgaria, with this project, is committed to comply with the national and the EU law, we also want to listen all the actors involved,” said one of the top officials.
“During the meetings, the Commission gave a positive evaluation of everything achieved by Bulgaria in this respect and we hope that our application can be approved within this programme period.
New Europe: Minister Dimov, you and Commissioner Vella discussed the remaining central section of the Sofia-Thessaloniki motorway.
This important project covers 24km through the mountains and it won’t be completely financed with EU money, but it will also receive national resources.
Did you discuss other topics with the EU Commissioner?
Did you and Commissioner Vella also talk about water pollution in the Black Sea?
Water quality was not part of yesterday’s discussion.
In fact, the coverage of what was achieved with wastewater treatment plants is something like 95% so you have almost all the Black Sea covered.
This is our priority as regards the Black Sea strategy, but there are other important issues.