About 505 posts at the National Toll Administration (NTU), part of the Road Infrastructure Agency (API), will be cut, according to Ioannis Partheniotis, vice-president of the Podkrepa labour confederation. Of these, 420 are filled. He told reporters this after talks with API management, which Prof Oleg Asenov, head of the NTU, also attended.
The reform has two stages. The first lasts four months, and NTU jobs are guaranteed during that time. The 420 staff will lose their jobs at the end of February. The other 85 posts are vacant.
In the first stage, API will get new organisational rules. These set out how the NTU is restructured and how some of its duties are shared out.
A new executive agency will collect road tolls. It is planned in a Council of Ministers decision linked to the road safety plan. Partheniotis says it will answer to the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Besides tolls, the agency will handle data on risk profiles and pass it to a single control body, also set up by a Council of Ministers decision. Some NTU staff will move to the new agency. They include people who collect tolls, run and maintain the electronic toll system, and look after the control gantries and roadside equipment. Digital tools for checks are also being developed.
The NTU is one department of API and works as a revenue agency. The cuts affect all its workers and staff.
Some of those laid off will get job offers in other state bodies. For the 420 staff in post, criteria will be drawn up for hiring them at the Interior Ministry, the Customs Agency and possibly the National Revenue Agency. The unions, NTU management and the HR units of the Interior Ministry and Customs will write the criteria together. Their work starts on 11 November.
Partheniotis said an automatic transfer under Article 123 of the Labour Code is not possible. The staff work on employment contracts, while some of the new bodies need civil servants. The Interior Ministry and Customs also have different requirements. Control officers at the Interior Ministry fall under the Interior Ministry Act, and at Customs mostly under the Civil Servants Act. The criteria should let people with the right experience and skills move to other bodies. Those whose API contracts end will get all payouts due under the Labour Code.
Asenov said the reform will not lower the quality of checks or the amount of tolls collected. He said it rests on an analysis of the NTU's functions. The two stages give a transition period. During it, the duties of the NTU's control unit move step by step to the single control body, so work carries on without a break. The aim is for other state bodies to build the capacity to take over these duties, and for staff with road experience to get job offers there.
Partheniotis called the meeting a mix of good and bad news. "The good news is that there is some end to this madness, because a terrible end is better than horror without end," he said.
Contracts of about 85 to 87 people in the regional road departments will end by the end of the year. The number differs from one department to another. The cuts mostly hit administrative staff, including those who handle public procurement, which is being centralised at API headquarters. Engineers and technical specialists are not affected.
After the second stage, total staffing will fall by about 170 people. The 2027 budget has no money for the cut posts in the regional departments.