Vazrazhdane MP Kosta Stoyanov called on parliament to finish the Hemus motorway. He read a declaration on behalf of the party's parliamentary group.

The occasion was an anniversary: earlier this month it was 52 years since work began. The road from Sofia to Varna is still less than half finished.

Stoyanov asked for a clear timetable for every unfinished section, secure funding for the work and public reports on progress. He also asked for effective checks on how the money is spent and for a fix to the design, administrative and contract problems that have piled up. The state, he said, must keep the project going when governments change.

"We live in times when humanity plans missions to Mars, develops artificial intelligence and creates technologies that, until a few years ago, looked like science fiction," Stoyanov said. In his words, what is being built is 425 km of road from Sofia to Varna, not the Great Wall of China.

Stoyanov believes Hemus has been handed from one government to the next as a political inheritance. The unfinished motorway costs missed opportunities and leaves regions behind, he said. On top of that come the risks on the busy roads between Sofia and Varna, which still carry the traffic, and the deaths in road crashes, because motorways are the safest roads.

Bulgaria needs not another solemn promise but a finished motorway, Stoyanov said. All political forces must unite for this, he said.

Every explanation for the delay includes "there is no money", he said, whether for roads and motorways or for hospitals, doctors and nurses, social benefits, and support for families, older people and people with disabilities. "The way things are going, we will have to announce a DMS campaign to raise money for the state," Stoyanov said.