Bulgaria cancels its largest Recovery Plan tenders

7 months ago 27

Bulgaria risks losing €1.2 billion from the Recovery Plan after cancelling tenders for the renewal of trains at Bulgarian State Railways BDZ.

Georgi Gvozdeykov, a minister in Nikolai Denkov’s cabinet who stayed on in the caretaker government because he wanted to complete the modernisation of BDZ, suspended a huge tender worth an estimated €600 million last week. For this EU funding, Bulgaria had to secure 35 single-deck trains.

A day later, a similar tender worth €600 million for the supply of 20 new high-speed (push-pull) trains was cancelled.

The renewal of the Bulgarian State Railways is the largest project financed by the Recovery Plan, with a total value for Bulgaria of €6 billion, and is vital for the state-owned railway company.

In the first tender, the favourites for supplying 35 single-deck trains were the Czech company SKODA and the Polish company PESA, which submitted offers for much less than the EU funding. Bulgaria cancelled the procedure because the two companies offered a longer delivery time for the trains.

In the second tender for the supply of 20 high-speed trains, the government wanted to attract the largest manufacturers, but overly restrictive delivery deadlines scared off many potential participants.

Only two companies – Spain’s Talgo and China’s CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co. Ltd. The Spanish company’s bid was €600 million, and the Chinese company’s was €303 million.

The double price difference and suspicions of unregulated state aid to the Chinese company led the European Commission to launch an investigation in February. This forced the Chinese company to withdraw its bid, as the investigation would have led to a breach of the company’s proposed schedule to deliver the trains within 33 months.

Negotiations continued with the Spanish company, but it turned out that its offer to deliver the new 20 trains would be longer than the 33 months set by Bulgaria. Without a commitment for this period, the tender was cancelled.

The Bulgarian government claims that the order for 20 new high-speed trains will not be reopened because the manufacturers cannot produce them in such a short time. The European Commission has allowed Bulgaria to make changes to the tender to deliver trains that can be produced and delivered by mid-2026.

(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)