Bulgaria Moves to Slash Notorious Danube Bridge Fee

Bulgaria is moving to reduce the hated fee for passage of the Danube Bridge into Romania. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's government is taking steps to modify the levy for passing through the Danube Bridge linking Bulgaria's Ruse and Romania's Giurgiu.

According MP Plamen Nunev from Bulgaria's ruling center-right party GERB, the Borisov Cabinet will include the issue of the Danube bridge passing fee in its weekly meeting agenda either this or next Wednesday.

At present there is an EUR 12 fee per car for a roundtrip passage 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.

"Prime Minister Boyko Borisov clearly stated when he was last in Romania that Bulgaria will work to reduce the Danube Bridge fee. This was one of the first issues that he set on the table during his visit to Bucharest. Bulgaria is awaiting Romania's position but on our part Regional Development Minister Rosen Plevneliev is working on an analysis of the situation with levy, and soon a proposal will be submitted to the Council of Ministers to reduce the fee for Danube Bridge," MP Nunev explained on Monday.

Nunev pointed out, as cited by BGNES, that if the government adopts this decisions, in the upcoming weeks a number of Bulgarian ministers will show up in Ruse to announce the change of the hated fee.

While the fee is EUR 6 per car in one direction, light trucks and vans have to pay EUR 12, trucks below 12 tons – EUR 18, and trucks above 12 tons – EUR 25.

In December 2010, 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.

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.

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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