Bulgaria and Turkey activate project for second border railway crossing

Bulgaria and Turkey are starting active work on the creation of a second railway border crossing between the two countries. This became clear during a meeting between Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Communications Grozdan Karadzhov, and Minister of Transport and Infrastructure of the Republic of Turkey Abdulkadir Uraloglu.

We are preparing options for the development of the Yambol – Elhovo – Lesovo – Turkish border-Edirne railway line and will submit them for discussion to the joint Bulgarian – Turkish working group,” Minister Karadzhov said.

According to him, the initiative is being developed in the spirit of the Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2023 between the two countries, which provides for enhanced cooperation in the field of rail transport.

The Deputy Prime Minister pointed out that preparatory activities have already begun on the Bulgarian side – implementation plans have been drawn up, an analysis of the current situation has been carried out, traffic forecasts have been made, and the capacity of the line has been assessed.

The two ministers agreed that the construction of a new railway link and a new border crossing point would significantly ease traffic through Svilengrad-Kapikule, one of the busiest land corridors between Europe and Asia. According to them, the optimization of border procedures and the reduction of delays will increase the competitiveness of rail transport compared to road transport.

Background
The idea of restoring and modernizing the Yambol-Elhovo-Lesovo railway line as a second railway border crossing is not new. We would like to remind you that Bulgaria and Turkey agreed on the second railway border crossing in mid-2023. The main objective was to relieve the railway traffic through the existing Svilengrad-Kapikule railway crossing. At that time, former acting minister Hristo Alexiev signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey, H.E. Aylin Sekizkök. A new railway connection between Yambol – Elhovo – Edirne was also agreed upon.

Prior to that, in March 2023 the National Railway Infrastructure Company announced a pre-investment study procedure to assess the benefits and costs of building such a railway border crossing, as well as the restoration of the Yambol-Elhovo railway line and its extension to Lesovo and the Turkish border. In September of the same year, a contractor was selected and a contract worth BGN 525,000 was signed. The funds were provided from the budget of the National Railway Infrastructure Company, and the deadline for the analysis was 12 months.

As of today, the study should be ready, but the documentation has not been made public. Therefore, it is currently unclear what options for the route are being discussed.

We would like to remind you that in 2023, the regional governor of Yambol, Georgi Chalakov, expressed the opinion that the project would most likely cost over BGN 118 million. The initial plans were for the railway line to receive funding from the Cohesion Funds or under the Green Deal.

Last March, former transport minister Georgi Gvozdeikov said that Bulgaria was expecting European funding for the construction of a second border railway crossing with Turkey. According to him, the Yambol-Elhovo-Lesovo route was already part of the national military transport corridor network, but was awaiting the green light from the European Commission to be included in the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).

Translated with DeepL.