The expansion of the motorways is one of the projects for which Romania wants to attract foreign partners. Funding is flowing from Brussels for this purpose.

• EU provides 875 million euros for road construction in Romania 

• Expansion projects are not new 

• A lack of staff in the authorities and actions for annulment delay projects

In Romania, the expansion of the transport corridors has not progressed for a long time. The corona pandemic has led to a trend reversal. The government has pulled some long-planned projects out of the drawer and firmly intends to pursue them again. This emerges from the plan for restarting the Romanian economy after the Corona crisis by 2030. The government estimates the investment backlog at 31 billion euros. Around 3,000 kilometers of new motorways and expressways are to be built in Romania by 2030. There are currently 386 kilometers of motorways and expressways under construction, which are funded by the European Union.

------  Section projected            ------  Section under construction        ------ Section completed

The project sponsor is the National Society for Road Infrastructure CNAIR. 

Source: National Economic and Investment Plan of the Romanian Government, National Road Infrastructure Company CNAIR

EU provides 875 million euros for road construction in Romania 

The European Commission has released 875 million euros from the Cohesion Fund for road construction. Romania is to use the money to finance the expansion of the first stage of the A1 motorway from Sibiu to Pitesti. This route runs through the Carpathians and is the last major section connecting Romania to the Rhine-Danube corridor. The highway is scheduled to be completed in 2026. Then the port city of Constanta will be connected to Strasbourg in France via the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). 

The 122.1-kilometer Sibiu-Pitesti section was divided into five construction lots. The tender for the third construction lot includes a route of 37.4 kilometers between Cornetu and Tigveni as well as construction projects with a project value of an estimated 1.2 billion euros. The tender was published by the road construction company CNAIR on September 23, 2020, on the state tender platform. It is about offers for the planning and construction of the following structures on this route:

• 1 motorway tunnel with a length of 1.7 kilometers - Romania's first motorway tunnel

• 3 motorway junctions 48 bridges and 6 passages over valleys and rivers 

• an approximately 220 meter long ecoduct (serves animals as an aid to safely cross busy traffic routes) 

Expansion projects are not new In addition to the tender for the third construction lot on the Sibiu-Pitesti route, the National Society for Road Infrastructure CNAIR is pursuing other motorway expansion projects that have been around for around 20 years. Some of them have failed so far because the feasibility studies were flawed or there was a lack of competent employees in the specialist departments of the authorities. It has also not yet been possible to implement projects in public-private partnerships (PPP). 

Key data on the highway expansion in Romania 

• Completed kilometers of motorway routes at the end of 2019: 866 

• Motorways built in kilometers in 2019: 43 

• Price range per kilometer in million euros (2020): 3.9-26.8 

• Realized PPP projects in Romanian road construction: 0