An annex to the contract for the construction of Trakia Highway was signed on April 26 by Regional Development and Public Works Minister Assen Gagauzov and a private Bulgarian-Portuguese Trakia Highway JSC Consortium.

Bulgaria's Cabinet approved the annex in March. It transfered construction and traffic risks to the concessionaire, where 51 per cent of the equity capital was held by three private investors from Portugal (MSF Moniz Da Maia, Serraand Fortunato; Lena Engenhariae Construcoes; and Somague Consessoerrise Servicos).

All clauses implying any kind of state guarantee will be also removed from the agreement.

Before the signing of the annex, Bulgarian officials said that work on completing and repairing parts of the 443km highway were expected to start by the end of June, which was more than promising. In reality, however, this is very unlikely because all steps in building the highway require the approval of various European Union institutions.

Further approval by the Government of the concession contract will be required after Eurostat takes a stance on potential state aid effects on the general government Budget. This led the Republican Road Infrastructure state fund to say that the start of the project could be delayed until the end of the year because Eurostat would take months to make a decision, and a further three months would be necessary for preparation works. Investments in new construction were valued at 590 million euro at an average cost of 2.7 million euro a km of newly built motorway sections.

The first contract on the construction of Trakia Highway was signed on December 16 2004 by the Simeon Saxe-Coburg government.

It awarded a 35-year concession for the highway to the Portuguese-Bulgarian consortium. In January 2007, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said that some of the contract clauses needed to be revised to delete the state guarantees, ensure that the concessionaire would assume all construction and availability risks; and keep unchanged the price - 2.7 million euro/km - for the construction and rehabilitation of the road from Kalotina (on the border with Serbia) to the Sofia ring road to Orizovo, Stara Zagora, Nova Zagora, Yambol, Karnobat and Bourgas (on the Black Sea). Some days later, the contractor said that they found the new conditions to be fair. Tolls for using Trakia Highway would not start being charged before 2010, Gagauzov told reporters on the day of the signing. The highways would have to be completed in three years and the new toll system and road junctions would also have to be ready by then.

Gagauzov said that the highway would be built and opened in stages because of insufficient finance. He had been approached by at least 10 financial institutions wanting to finance the project. This Cabinet's term in office would hardly suffice to complete all planned motorways, but at least two more should be started, apart from Trakia, Lyulin and Maritsa, Gagauzov said.