Corridor 8 countries agree to speed up construction projects

Tirana, April 30 – Albania, Italy, Macedonia and Bulgaria have agreed to speed up the construction of Corridor 8, an east-west European road and rail network linking the four countries. In a two-day conference held in Tirana, transport ministers from the four countries signed a memorandum of understanding committing to give a new impetus and accelerate the implementation of the infrastructural projects linking the Adriatic and Ionian regions to the Black Sea.
Speaking at the conference, Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha said the implementation of the Corridor 8 project during the past 15 years had been delayed by conflicts in the region.
“I am fully confident that our governments can build the Corridor and should seriously consider its construction despite the cost,” said Berisha.
Meanwhile, Transport Minister Sokol Olldashi said Albania would benefit from the corridor’s construction as the only Pan-European hub crossing the country and because of the access it would provide to 1.4 million people, more than 40 percent of the population. Most importantly, is the fact that trade exchanges between Albania and the countries where the corridor passes make up 40 percent of the country’s total exchanges.
Olldashi said the Albanian government had invested in many infrastructural projects many of which directly related to Corridor 8 such as the Durres-Vlore road and newly designed Tirana-Elbasan highway worth 270 million euros. Investments are also being made in the Durres and Vlora ports, the corridor’s entry gates.
Minister Olldashi also highlighted the importance of the development of the railway system through the corridor.
Albania has railway connection only to Montenegro and has to build three kilometers of railway to connect to neighbouring Macedonia.
Meanwhile, the other transport ministers, Italy’s Altero Matteoli, Macedonia’s Mile Janakievski and Bulgaria’s Aleksandar Tsvetkov highlighted the importance of common action in order to make sure Corridor 8 is included as part of the EU’s priorities and, as a result, that it enjoys the financial support of Brussels and of other financial institutions.
The four countries crossed by Corridor 8 have decided to found a technical and diplomatic inter-ministerial group of high-level experts that “will be asked to jointly examine national transport plans and national priority projects of the signatories, with the aim of identifying common cross-border projects on Corridor VIII, common initiatives and financial resources for their implementation in a short period of time.”
“Beginning with today’s declaration, it will be necessary from now on to take a pragmatic approach and give the maximum technical and institutional support to the series of initiatives that will need to be taken in the short and medium-term,” said Italian minister Matteoli as quoted by Ansa.
Corridor VIII links the Adriatic-Ionian regions with the Balkan regions and Black Sea countries. From an economic point of view, with the trans-European networks the European Commission aims at realizing an enhanced territorial access to EU countries, and thus develop an increased mobility of people/goods following the Single Market objectives and the principles of sustainable mobility, according to the Corridor VIII secretariat. From a transportation point of view, Corridor VIII is a multi-modal transport system along the East-West axis comprising of sea and river ports, airports, multi-modal ports, roads and railways, for a total extension of 1270 kilometres of railways and 960 kilometres of roads. Its main route follows the Bari – Brindisi – Durres – Tirana – Skopje – Burgas – Varna axis.