During his visit to Sofia in the beginning of April, the President of Serbia and Montenegro, Boris Tadic, held talks with his Bulgarian counterpart, Georgi Parvanov. Among the discussed priorities in Bulgarian-Serbian relations, the two Heads of state pointed to the electrification of the railway line section from Dragoman to Dimitrovgrad, as well as the construction of the new border control points and the improvements on the already existing points. At the same time, the Bulgarian Government approved a draft Agreement between Bulgaria and Serbia and Montenegro, in accordance with which the border stopping times of passenger trains will be limited to 20 minutes, while the stopping times of freight trains will be reduced from 12 to 5 hours. The Agreement was signed on 15th April by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of transport and communications, Nikolay Vassilev, and the Serbian Minister of capital investments, Velimir Ilic, in the presence of the Prime Ministers Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha and Vojislav Kostunica. This became possible after Bulgaria agreed upon the nomination of Dimitrovgrad as a common border station, whereas the border controls will be performed on Serbian territory. After the document has been signed, it is expected that the border control procedures will be considerably alleviated.

The US company Kingston Enterprises and the Bulgarian company Evrometal bought out BGN60 million from the debt of the National Railway Infrastructure Company to the National Electricity Company. This debt was accumulated more than three years ago at the time of the split-up between the infrastructure manager and the operator. NRIC will have to pay back its financial liabilities to Evrometal and Kingston Enterprises for a period of two years at 7% interest rate. In order to ensure the paying back of its liabilities, the company has constituted a guarantee over its future revenue from the sales of real estate assets, railway facilities from the railway lines Pazardjik-Varvara and Oryahovo-Cherven bryag, as well as from the sale of 5 824 wagons of BDZ, by means of which the operator will disburse its liabilities to NRIC for infrastructure charges.

On 13th April, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of transport, Nikolay Vassilev, handed the license for freight services on the whole railway network of Bulgaria to Philippe Rombaut, Chairman of the Managing Board of Bulgarian Railway Company (more about the company in February issue, 2005). The licence is permanent and every five years the State Railway Inspectorate will check the conditions, under which the licence has been issued. Till now, only BDZ EAD held a national licence for the transport of passengers and freight, while the private company Bulmarket-DM Ltd. held a regional license for freight operations along the Rousse Sever-Kaspichan line. When presenting the licence, the Deputy Prime Minister Vassilev recalled the fact that the overall liberalisation of the railway transport market is the major priority in the strategy for the development of this sector, and underlined that the issuing of a second licence to a private company in such comparatively short terms is a proof of the priority policy of the Transport Ministry on railways.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of transport and communications, Nikolay Vassilev, stated that after the recently-completed monitoring on reforms in our railways, the EC assessed the achievements of Bulgaria since 2004 as excellent. Brussels considers that there is no slowing down in the process of railway market liberalisation and the provision of equal conditions for the development of state-owned and private operators.

The Deputy Prime Minister announced that if the Commission on Protection of Competition approves it, some of the railway real estate will be sold and the revenue will be invested in the modernisation of railway infrastructure.

On 14th April, the Deputy Ministers of transport and communications, Sophia Kassidova and Anelia Krushkova presented the agreements on Chapter 9 'Transport Policy' from the Contract for the accession of Bulgaria into the EU. Deputy Minister Krushkova pointed out that the only railway project supported by the European Commission this year is the electrification of the Plovdiv-Svilengrad line (the overall project costs amount to EUR340 million). Having in mind the expected new European investments in railway transport, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Communications, Nikolay Vassilev, in the beginning of 2005 assigned the task of the development of new projects in the sphere of railways to be managed by Deputy Minister Krushkova. These will be at least six projects for the rehabilitation of the main railway routes Sofia-Burgas, Sofia-Varna and Vidin-Kulata, as well as the development of combined transport, and they should be prepared by 2006. Deputy Minister Krushkova pointed out the extremely poor condition of the national railway network. She considers that railway transport could rely upon investments, amounting up to EUR5 billion, provided that a sufficient number of high-level projects are prepared. Krushkova stated that the construction of 1 km of railway line costs about EUR1 million and the next Government should make amendments to the Railway Transport Act so as to provide an opportunity for concessions of parts of the national railway network.

During his visit in the Republic of Macedonia (16th-19th April), the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport and Communications Nikolay Vassilev met the President Branko Crvenkovski, the Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski and the Transport Minister Xhemali Mehazi. Among the main aims of this visit was the acceleration of work on the connection of the railway networks of both countries. After meeting his Macedonian counterpart Mehazi, Minister Vassilev stated that Bulgaria will complete the works on the railway line to the Macedonian border (2 km) by the end of 2005. As regards the uncompleted section on Macedonian territory of the Sofia-Skopje line, it will most probably be constructed by concessionaires, who will operate it for a period of 50 years. At the meeting was also discussed the issue of the Macedonian railways debt to Bulgaria, amounting to EUR3 619 647 (not including interest), as well as the condition of the Pan-European transport corridor VIII, which crosses the territories of Albania, Macedonia and Bulgaria. The two ministers signed a joint declaration for the acceleration of the project for the railway link between the two countries, confirmation of the debt of Macedonian railways to BDZ EAD and the provision of the so called 'fifth freedom' to Bulgarian airline operators. Nasko Tsanev, CEO of BDZ EAD, was a member of the Bulgarian delegation.