At the height of summer, let us take a look at the national road network, though not the thoroughfares leading to the seaside resorts in the environs of Varna but at the region of the town of Vidin. Once the capital of the Tsardom (Kingdom) of Vidin (1369 -1396), today the town is in the poorest and depopulated region of the European Union.
Alongside these problems, the people of Vidin and the surrounding towns and villages are eager to see the Vidin-Botevgrad expressway completed. The plans are for the 190-km. route to be finished in 2027. The road would connect Danube Bridge 2 with Hemus motorway, and that would ease the heavy traffic in the area. As to the yearly problem of freight traffic across the border check point with Romania, no solution has as yet been found. According to an analysis by the Directorate-General Border Police, commissioned by BNR-Vidin, the border check point has reaches saturation point for trucks. There are several reasons for this – on the one hand the summer season has started, on the other the routes for international drivers have been altered due to geopolitical, economic and other factors. One of the major obstacles to facilitating the functioning of the border crossing is, according to the analysis, the fact that traffic cannot be re-organized. And the reason for that is that such a re-organization is entirely up to our Northern neighbour – Romania – as the land on which the check point is located is owned by Romania. The check point and the area around it is run by a joint Bulgarian-Romanian venture - Vidin-Calafat AD.
BNR-Vidin talked to drivers waiting at the border, and they were all furious at the conditions they have to endure while they wait for hours to cross the border:
“If you manage to cross over within one 15-hour shift, then you’re lucky. It is not easy – with the sun beating down, temperatures of 30 degrees and over, no wind. I think the delay is due to the control on the Romanian side which takes more time, whereas in the opposite direction – in the direction of Bulgaria – the queue moves a little bit faster,” one heavy duty truck driver says.
“It is possible to reduce waiting time if the counters where the documents of vehicles from non-EU countries are checked and vignettes sold are moved after the check point,” another driver says.
“There is a major delay because of the gas analysis of some of the trucks at the check point,” a third driver adds.
All trucks have to be weighed with truck-scales, and that too wastes many hours at the border. Some of the drivers give the organization of this process in Hungary as an example. There, the procedure takes place at a parking lot outside the border check point. And this is one of the recommendations from the Interior ministry analysis – that some of the procedures be dropped, and others moved outside the border check point zone.
Editing by Yoan Kolev
Photos: BNR-Vidin, BGNES - archiveThe mellow days of autumn are the perfect time to take a stroll among the stores lining the Samovodska charshia in Veliko Tarnovo. The old crafts street and marketplace, now an ethnographic and architectural complex, dates back to the mid-19 th..
Cultural and linguistic diversity - this is what distinguishes the European Union, and the languages spoken in the community are an important part of Europe's cultural heritage. There are currently 24 official languages in the EU and each time a Member..
20 Bulgarian breweries will offer a taste of their unique beer recipes at the Hops Street festival, to be held at the NDK (National Palace of Culture) in central Sofia at the end of the week - September 27, 28 and 29. There will be a wide range of..
The escalation of tension in the Middle East has turned public attention to the domain of diplomacy and ways to avoid the spread and involvement of more..
Master confectioners will today create the longest bar of chocolate at the Choco Art festival in Plovdiv. All visitors are invited to munch on the giant,..
On the occasion of today's Stara Zagora Day, residents and guests of the city are invited to a free tour. During the "Parks tell their stories" tour,..
+359 2 9336 661