TIRANA, Sept. 14 – The Albanian and Greek state-run railway companies have stepped up cooperation to establish a first railway connection between the two neighbouring countries in a joint project expected to receive EU funding.
The projects targets linking the Greek town of Florina, some 50 km off the Albania-Greece border crossing point of Kapshtica, with Pogradec, the lake town in south-eastern Albania, VoA in the local Albanian service reports.
Albanian and Greek ‘authorities are hopeful they will getting funding from the EU’s IPA II Cross-border Cooperation Programme “Greece-Albania 2014-2020” aimed at improving the quality of life in the Greece-Albania border regions by promoting sustainable local development.
A preliminary project envisages a completely new single-track railway and an electric train that could cost more than 1 billion euros, a staggering amount which the two countries cannot secure only through EU funding.
The new 2014-2020 cross-border “Interreg IPA” programme adopted by the European Commission covers eleven border regional units in Greece and four Albanian regions and is worth more than €42 million, with a contribution from the European Union of nearly €36 million from the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA). The investments aim to promote sustainable transport and improve the management of cross border water, waste and energy services.
The project’s cost from Florina to the Albanian border crossing point of Kapshtica with Greece is estimated at €397 million while a 61 km single-track railway from Kapshtica to Pogradec could cost more than double, taking the total amount needed for that project to a staggering €1.2 billion.
The railway line could also serve to ease movement of people and goods with Greece, Albania’s second largest trading partner and the host of some 500,000 Albanian migrants.
The Kapshtica border crossing points is often overcrowded with long lines of cars during summer and year-end holidays as thousands of migrants come home to spend their vacations.
Albania is also planning to build a railway connection with neighbouring Macedonia as part of a Corridor 8 project, an east-west European road and rail network linking Albania, Italy, Macedonia and Bulgaria. The cost of the 60-km Kerà§ove-Lin railway project is estimated €350 million.
The new railway projects come at a time when Albania is expected to launch an international tender to revitalize its dilapidated rail transport by reconstructing the key Tirana-Durres segment and linking it to the country’s sole international airport.
London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has pledged a €34.5 million loan to partly fund the reconstruction of the 35 km Tirana-Durres segment and built a new 7.4 km section linking Tirana to the airport just outside the capital in Rinas. The project’s total cost is estimated at €86.4 million.
State-run Albanian Railways is currently the only operator in Albania’s rail system, which has seen a sharp decline both in both passenger and freight transport in the past two decades due to lack of investments and mismanagement.
