Foreign Minister 'Hopes' for Drop of Hated Bulgaria-Romania Bridge Fee

Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov has expressed hopes that the government will soon be able to modify the levy for passing through the Danube Bridge linking Bulgaria's Ruse and Romania's Giurgiu.

At present there is an EUR 12 fee per car for passing into either direction of the only operational bridge in the Bulgarian-Romanian section of the Danube.

The residents of the city of Ruse have protested numerous times against the bridge levy, hoping that it would abolished, or at least reduced substantially.

In September 2010, during a visit to Ruse, Bulgaria's Finance Minister Djankov said the Danube Bridge fee for cars should be reduced to EUR 1.5-2. He revealed the present Bulgarian government held talks with the Romanian side three times in order to reduce the fee. He also said he expected progress around the end of the year, and that Bulgaria has approached the EU institutions asking if it can reduce the levy independently even if the Romanian side does not agree to do so.

On Monday, Foreign Minister Mladenov told students at the Ruse University that progress should be imminent.

"We were ready to resolve this issue two months ago, but we have to wait a little. I hope that we will have good news for your within a few months," Mladenov said.

In the 4th century Roman Emperor Constantine I the Great built the largest river bridge in ancient times, Constantine's Bridge on the Danube, which was 2.5 km long, 6 meters wide, and existed in 328 AD - ca. 355 AD.

The "next" bridge (today's Ruse-Giurgiu Bridge) on the Lower Danube, in the Bulgarian-Romanian section of the river was built only in 1954, about 1 600 years later, at the initiative of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

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