By Ashley Karen
The Europe-2022 consortium, which contains the Bulgarian civil engineering group Glavbolgarstroy, has a €136.5 million contract to work on the last 16.5km of what will be the almost 65 km-long Europa Motorway to connect Sofia to the Kalotina on the border with Serbia.
The A6 Europa Motorway was named the A6 Kalotina Motorway until the Bulgarian government officially changed the name in 2018. Also, it is part of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).
Other members of the consortium encompass GBS-Infrastructure Construction and the local company Obonato Build. Europe, another consortium, has been granted a €2.86 million building supervision contract. The investor group includes Bulgarian firms Patinvest-Engineering, Stroynorm and R G Konsulting.
According to the regional development minister Ivan Shishkov, the final stretch should be ready within 18 months. He also claimed that the beginning of the construction process had been essential for preventing the loss of EU structural funding.
The A6 Europa Motorways contains the capital Sophia’s 13km-long Northern Bypass Highway (also named the Sofia Northern Speed Tangent). It was commenced in the section between 2015 and 2016.
In February, the European Commission confirmed an investment of over €183 million from the Cohesion Fund for constructing the Kalotina-Sophia link, containing the capital’s ring road.
Last June, Bulgaria granted a design-build contract with a value of about €186.4 million (US$200 million) for the Shipka Peak Tunnel in the Balkan Mountain range.
The tunnel will be on the north-south I-5 highway and operate beneath Shipka Peak, rising 1329m above sea level in Bulgaria’s Balkan Mountains and within Bulgarka Nature Park. I-5 follows European route E85 from Ruse to Haskovo.
