“We continue the change” has already started a clear election campaign, and with it, exaggerations or open manipulations, traditional for the genre, are starting. This is not a trademark of this party alone, but in this case the PP is in a hurry because the damage of the short governing mandate must be minimized. A very telling example was the dispute in absentia between the former finance minister Asen Vassilev and the former deputy prime minister in Galab Donev’s office Atanas Pekanov on the subject of whether there will be a Plovdiv metro financed under the recovery and sustainability plan /PVU/. Traditionally, truths have been mixed with lies, but the big problem is that the public procurements for the project fail one after another and there is a huge risk of losing funds under the PVU.
What is it – metro or urban railway?
The dispute about the metro in Plovdiv started from an organized meeting with supporters of “We continue the change” in the city under the hills. Through the citizens of Plovdiv, Asen Vassilev gave a presentation listing various successes of the government, including the inclusion of a project to build a metro for Plovdiv in the PVU. “This is something that I have been pushing for long before I was a minister – for Plovdiv to have a metro, a city railway,” Vassilev said, announcing that he had spoken at least 10 times on the subject with NKŽI. He presented a visualization of the project and stated that it is ready at the conceptual design level, technical design is to come, and if NKJI does not change its priorities, construction from next year 2025. Deputy Prime Minister in the caretaker government Atanas Pekanov reacted to these statements, who replied that in PVU does not have a project to build a metro for Plovdiv. Vassilev, however, did not agree and accused him of not knowing the plan. Alas, the explanations given by Asen Vasilev himself on “Facebook” show that he really exaggerates.
It must be recognized that Kiril Petkov’s office has indeed contributed to the revision of the large project for the purchase of new rolling stock for the BDZ under PVU. This project also appeared in previous versions of the plan, even in the most initial version from the time of Tomislav Donchev, but it was more modest. In the version of the plan as of October 2021, the project provided for the purchase of 20 trains for specific long-distance routes worth BGN 312 million. Under the Petkov government, the project was upgraded, and already provides for the purchase of 42 new trains – 7 double-decker and 35 single-decker, for train service to the suburban areas of Sofia, Plovdiv and other cities. For this, an estimated BGN 372.6 million was provided for under the PVA, BGN 159.9 million in national additional funding to cover the full price of the vehicles and another BGN 200 million in warranty support.
That’s the end of the good news and rumors about the project. The smallest problem surrounding it is the misrepresentation of a project to purchase trains as a project to build a city subway. The two things are different, and here Asen Vassilev can only be angry with himself for the broken phone. The bigger drama is the failure of the relevant public procurement and, to put it mildly, the rosy predictions of how things will be implemented in a hurry.
The new suburban trains will come. Once, but not now
As “Sega” wrote, the second public order announced by Transport Minister Georgi Gvozdeikov for the purchase of new trains for the suburban lines, including the Plovdiv suburban railway, failed. What’s more – the orders are starting to fail with the same argument – the impossibility of the new trains being delivered and registered within the time frame the contracting authority, the Ministry of Transport, requires. Both bidders, PESA and SKODA, failed to meet the deadline of 28 months for the delivery and registration of the trains and offered a longer implementation, PESA with 5 months more and SKODA requested a total of 35 months . Due to non-compliance with the deadlines, the order was terminated.
The transport ministry now plans to switch to direct contracting with a wide range of companies, but it is unclear how this will make meeting the deadline easier. It is related to the final date for the implementation of the RAP – 2026. I.e. here the picture will not improve, but will worsen. Deadlines will become increasingly impossible. The Ministry of Transport has already gone down this path with a second order under the project – for the purchase of 20 push-pull trains. In his case, the order was terminated due to non-compliance with the deadlines in the technical offers, and it went to direct negotiations with the candidates, with one – the Chinese company “CRRRC” withdrawing after the intervention of the EC for illegal aid, and the second candidate – “Talgo”. again gave deadlines that exceeded those required by the contracting authority. Thus, direct negotiation also failed. Against this background, it can be argued that the “Denkov” cabinet, and in particular Minister Gvozdeikov, did not correctly assess the previous public procurements of the caretaker government, which they terminated with unconvincing arguments. This led to delays in procedures and increasingly impossible deadlines.
Who actually executes the urban rail project?
In the presentation of Asen Vasilev, it was clearly seen that he mixes the projects. In front of the people of Plovdiv, he explained that he had spoken with NKŽI more than 10 times to start “designing this thing”. NKŽI actually has nothing to do with the project to purchase the new trains, cited by Vassilev himself as proof that there is a metro project for Plovdiv in PVU. The new trains are being bought by the Ministry of Transport itself and will probably be transferred as an asset to BDZ-Passenger Transport. NKŽI is working on the city railway of Plovdiv on a completely different project, which has been awaited for a long time and which is not under the PVU.
The construction of a city railway in Plovdiv is part of a large project under the “Transport Connectivity” operational program. The project is set within the framework of priority 4 “Intermodality in an urban environment”, with a total value of BGN 92 million. It envisages the construction of railway connections between the railway stations of Plovdiv and Burgas and the airports of the two cities.
Separately, NKŽI is working on the second stage of the modernization of the Plovdiv-Burgas railway line, again according to the operational program. These are very difficult projects, certainly great efforts were made on them, in which Vassilev himself participated. But it is, to put it mildly, immodest for the last cabinet to take credit for a program prepared by many governments and approved in 2022.
When will the pictures become reality?
In his appearance before the people of Plovdiv, Asen Vassilev left a feeling that everything is very simple and can be realized quickly, if there is a desire to work and “do not steal”. “This thing was explained to me that it would take three years. People made the conceptual project in three months,” Vassilev gave an example, pointing to the visualization of the city railway. He added that technical design is currently underway and construction could begin next year.
This is perhaps the most frivolous part of Vassilev’s statement, which does a disservice to the NKRI itself. The implementation of such large infrastructure projects is not at all easy, and to present a prepared idea and visualization as proof of work done against the background of heavy activities to come is very unconvincing.
According to the information system for the management of EU funds, the priority axis “Intermodality in an urban environment” has BGN 0 /zero/ real implementation, with the activities still to come. On February 2nd, NKŽI released a notice for preliminary information, according to which the company is about to release an actual notice for a public procurement “Preparation of a technical project, technical specifications for construction and preparation of a PUP for a connection between Plovdiv railway station and Plovdiv airport”. According to the preliminary announcement, the order itself is to be announced on February 15. This deadline was not met, probably due to the rotation – a procedure was announced on April 18, and it is not for the design itself, but for conducting market consultations for the presentation of proposals with indicative prices in order to determine the estimated value of the future order.
It is true that a finance minister cannot know all the big orders in detail. Vassilev’s presentation includes many other topics that he touched upon in a presentation of what was done by the cabinet. But creating false expectations and assigning credit is simply not good practice. Especially against the background of a serious risk of failure of the projects that you consider successful. It remains to be seen what will happen with the new suburban trains and when and if they will start to travel – something that no one would protest against.
Otherwise, a similar presentation was presented in 2023 by the acting minister Hristo Alexiev, although with a less impressive video visualization.
