The decades long project to build a railway connecting Macedonia and Bulgaria will have yet another opening ceremony today, with the interim Bulgarian Prime Minister Galab Donev coming to Kumanovo to meet with Dimitar Kovacevski.

Work has been stopped since 2020, but now both countries are hoping to use EU funding to resume work on the project, that was marked as high priority in the 1990ies, when Macedonia’s economy collapsed under pressure of the Greek embargo and the UN sanctions against Serbia, which are the only two countries Macedonia has proper infrastructure ties with. Still, very little work has been done in the next three decades.

The line, which is part of Corridor 8, is divided into three sections and the EU is supposed to contribute up to 275 million EUR for the first two of them.