Romania’s motorway network is really poor, among the least developed in the European Union, and it is growing really slowly: it reached only 807 km at the end of last year, and it grew by only 60 km in 2018, although the target for last year was 100 km. No wonder Romanians are skeptical about the country’s motorway expansion, and were skeptical about this year’s target, which changed several times during this year.
At the beginning of 2019, the state-owned road infrastructure management company CNAIR announced, not officially, that by the end of the year 180 km motorway will be finished. Shortly after the CNAIR announcement, the members of the ruling parties of Romania picked up the figure themselves and it sort of became official. Later, under this political pressure, CNAIR announced that they applied the 180 km figure for this year.
But – as expected – things didn’t go nowhere near as planned, and at the beginning of this month the general manager of CNAIR, Narcis Neaga announced his resignation. His removal was asked by Prime Minister Viorica Dăncilă, blaming the former manager for “unjustified delays and bad management”. The new manager of the CNAIR is Sorin Scarlat.
And as the manager of the CNAIR was removed, the dream of 180 km new motorways has also been crushed: minister of transport, Răzvan Cuc announced on Monday on TVR 1 that in 2019 only 100 km motorways will be finished. He said that Neaga’s promise was doubted by professionals, as they said that only 62 or 98 km could be finished this year. The minister also declared that the promise of 180 km motorway was made by people sitting in offices, and not by specialists working on the construction.
According to Cuc, 45 km of motorways will be finished in the next two weeks, so only 55 km remains to be finished till December.
Title image (illustration): Romania’s motorway network is really poor, and it is growing really slowly. Photo: CNAIR/Facebook
