Transport minister Georgi Peev has called a meeting with hauliers and state bodies to ease traffic at the Kapitan Andreevo border crossing, the ministry said. The goal is for the crossing to handle about 1,000 lorries a day.
Lorries leaving Bulgaria through Kapitan Andreevo and Lesovo are moving through very heavy traffic, Border Police said earlier today.
Deputy minister Hristina Velinova and chief commissioner Anton Zlatanov, head of the Border Police Directorate General, attended the meeting. So did Nikolay Shushkov, head of the Customs Agency, and Boyko Ranovski, executive director of the Automobile Administration Executive Agency. Border Police and customs are already working to speed up checks at the crossing.
One idea discussed is to move lorries off the Maritsa motorway and make them wait at safe sites. Some checks would take place there, and the lorries would then be sent to the crossing in an organised way.
Building work at Kapitan Andreevo is expected to end in the middle of next year. The plans include more booths for lorries, as well as double and reversible booths, where entry and exit lanes switch according to the load. The ministry calls the rebuild a medium- and long-term step to raise capacity.
The crossing's capacity for lorries is expected to rise by more than 25%, from about 1m to more than 1.25m lorries a year.
Kapitan Andreevo lies on the Schengen area's external border, and the ministry says it will not sacrifice the quality of border and customs checks. "Our aim is to make the crossing faster, while keeping border and customs control at a high level," Peev said in the statement. He said all the responsible bodies and the transport industry need constant coordination.
For Lesovo, a design has been drawn up to double the entry and exit lanes, with room for up to 2,000 lorries a day.
A new crossing for heavy goods traffic only, Kapitan Andreevo – Kapikule North, is being built right next to the current one and should be ready within two years.