Danube bridge start

The bulgarian prime minister Sergey Stanishev has dug the first piece of earth in the construction of the Danube Bridge II. The link is being built between Vidin on the Bulgarian side and Kalafat in Romania

The combined road and rail bridge is an extension of the € 11 billion Pan-European Transport Corridor IV, to link Vienna and Bucharest. The addition of the Danube crossing will allow the corridor to be extended through the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, and on to Thessaloniki in Greece.

The bridge will be 1,97 km long, with four road lanes and a single railway line. The main contractor is Spain's FCC, and completion is expected in 2010.

Funding for the € 100 million structure has come from a variety of sources including the EU's Phare and Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession (ISPA) pre-accession funds, European Investment Bank (EIB) loans, as well as Romanian and Bulgarian public funds.