Serbia and Bulgaria considering opening new border crossing

Serbia and Bulgaria are considering the possibility of opening a new border crossing between the two countries. Due to heavy traffic at the Gradina crossing during the season, several initiatives have been launched to open an alternative crossing. It is estimated that more than 1,000 workers and students from the Pirot region often travel to Bulgaria.

During the season, it sometimes takes five hours to travel the 50 km route. Kilometer-long queues at the Gradina crossing are common during the summer and holidays, so workers and students spend hours at the border.

– I have been working in Bulgaria for 3 years and like everyone from Dimitrovgrad and other border towns, we face problems during the season, when it is vacation time, we literally have to make do, we cross the border on foot. We leave the car, cross on foot and likewise on the way back. Sometimes we wait for 3-4 hours. You get up at 4 in the morning and when you come back, it’s already dark. You don’t see daylight at all – says Sokol Sokolov, from Dimitrovgrad.

Nebojsa Ivanov, from Dimitrovgrad, says that he travels every day.

– I have been working in Bulgaria for 8 years and only in the summer do we have a problem, because we wait for several hours at the border. We launched an initiative 4-5 years ago to open a crossing for workers or some kind of passage to make it easier to get to work and back.

The Dimitrovgrad Municipality supported the citizens’ initiatives and two years ago sent a request to the state authorities of Serbia and Bulgaria to open a new border crossing.

Vladica Dimitrov, the President of the Dimitrovgrad Municipality, says that for the first time there is an initiative that it should not be a seasonal crossing, as they planned, for two or three months, but for it to be a real cross-border crossing that will operate for 12 months.

– I think that even our side, the Serbian side, has accepted or will accept in the coming period the solution that it should be a joint international border crossing between the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Bulgaria – Dimitrov emphasizes.

Due to the congestion at Gradina, tourists from neighboring Bulgaria come to Dimitrovgrad less often during the summer, and a decline in tourist traffic is recorded.

– During the summer rush, when transit traffic is huge and when there are traffic jams at the border, they practically do not cross the border and we lose them during that period. So we have neither the hospitality industry nor the offer that we have throughout the year. It stops for 3 or 4 months. This is very important for the GDP of our local government – emphasizes Vladica Dimitrov, President of the Dimitrovgrad Municipality.

Now it is time for the interstate commission of Serbia and Bulgaria to make its move, which should agree on all the details for the opening of the new border crossing. Unofficially, it is estimated that the shortest deadline for the construction of the crossing is one year.

Opština Dimitrovgrad

Municipality of Dimitrovgrad

Sokol Sokolov

Nebojša Ivanov

Vladica Dimitrov

Gradina

Bulgaria border crossing