Transport and geopolitical changes
A report from the 2nd Burgas Connectivity Forum. Norbert Beckmann-Dierkes, the director of the foundation Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) in Sofia, believes that establishing links for the free movement of people and goods is fundamental to economic development in the Balkans. He once again invited practitioners and experts from the Southeast European transport industry to the Black Sea port city for a conference recently.
In recent years the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), a leading German foundation and think-tank, has already presented a series of studies on the shipping and railway transport modes in the Balkans. At BCF 2024, the 2nd Burgas Connectivity Forum, KAS director Norbert Beckmann-Dierkes presented another heavy tome – ‘Enhancing road connectivity in Southeastern Europe: facts, requirements, challenges’.
In his address to the auditorium, filled with guests from no less than 15 countries, Bulgaria’s transport minister Georgi Gvosdejkov underlined the fact that the war in Ukraine requires flexibility for transport routes in the Black Sea region.
“We need to improve road and rail connections with Romania and Greece on the north–south axis,” he said. The planned construction of a second road and rail bridge across the Danube between Russe and the Romanian city of Giurgiu is therefore “a crucially important element of ‘Pan-European Transport Corridor IX’, running from the Aegean Sea via the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea.”
A new railway line to be built between Greece’s Aegean Sea hubs and Bulgaria’s Black Sea ports “could also provide an alternative to the Bosphorus for international freight traffic,” the minister added.
Accelerating in the Balkans
‘Pan-European Transport Corridor VIII’, which links Albania’s Adriatic Sea port of Durres with Burgas and Varna via North Macedonia, was one key theme at the meeting. It was designed to facilitate freight transport on the Balkan–Italy axis. However, this requires linking the Bulgarian rail network with Macedonia’s. The current state of planning doesn’t foresee the connection between Sofia and Skopje being set up until 2030, however.
Gvosdejkov promised that by 2027 the Burgas–Plovdiv–Sofia railway line, which has been undergoing modernisation for the past 20 years, will now offer journey times of three hours instead of seven. This will be important for Bulgaria’s railfreight sector, because it will allow the Bulgarian section of the corridor to assume its function as a continuation of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.
Ports and railways along the Middle Corridor from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea aren’t considered efficient enough yet to carry goods between China and Europe, to take the place of the Northern Corridor, which ran through Russia but is problematic now since the latter attacked Ukraine.
Aiming for greater efficiency
Regionally, Varna and Burgas only consider Constanța as a competitor. The Ukrainian shipping line UKR Ferry has operated a ferry service from the Romanian port of Constanța to the Georgian town of Poti since summer 2023. A few years ago, Burgas and Varna were still connected to numerous Black Sea ports by ferry lines, including Constanța, Odesa, Sevastopol, Kavkaz, Novorossiysk, Poti and Batumi.
The last remaining links were Varna–Novorossiysk and Burgas–Batumi. The ferry Drushba (Friendship) last achieved a record result in 2023, with more than 9,000 vehicles transported and 5,000 vehicles on the Burgas–Batumi route.
Since mid-April the The Heroes of Sevastopol ferry to Batumi has departed from Varna once a week, and a line also runs to Karasu (Turkey) – as long as a minimum utilisation ratio is attained.
Bulgaria’s transport minister attaches particularly great importance to the Varna ferry port complex for the post-war transport of materials and technology to Ukraine for that country’s reconstruction. It’s the only EU port with a facility to switch track gauges to those customary in post-Soviet countries.