Bulgaria does not have to scrap vignettes for cars under 3.5 tonnes after 2030. Nor does it have to switch to a pay-per-kilometre toll. That's what regional development minister Ivan Shishkov told parliament. He was answering a question from Petar Petrov, an MP from the Vazrazhdane party, on what the ministry plans for the shift from vignettes to tolls.
Shishkov said EU rules rest on two principles: "user pays" and "polluter pays". The change due in March 2030, he said, applies to heavy trucks on the trans-European road network. For them, time-based charging must go, with exceptions only in specific cases set out in the rules.
"Right now, EU law does not force Bulgaria to drop vignettes for cars from 2030 and replace them with tolls based on distance driven," the minister said. The goal of EU policy, he explained, is to make charges depend more on how much a road is actually used and how much pollution the traffic causes.
By March 25, 2027, the European Commission must check how well the current rules for charging cars are working, Shishkov said. Only then could changes to EU law be put forward. So for now, Bulgaria has made no decision to scrap vignettes after 2030. There's no set price per kilometre either, no word on how the charge would be worked out, and no clarity on exactly which roads would be tolled this way.
The minister also spoke about new motorways and how they'll be paid for. He confirmed that the Hemus and Vidin motorways will keep being built with state money, and he expects both to be finished within two and a half to three years. The vignette system will still apply to them, Shishkov said.
The regional development minister said around 1,000 km of new roads are due to be built — the Black Sea motorway, sections of the Ruse-Makaza route, the Rila motorway, and the tunnel under Petrohan. But Bulgarian taxpayers' money isn't enough to cover all that building, he said. So the only way to build these roads is through private money under concession deals — the budget simply doesn't have enough. "There are probably economists in this room, and they'll know that bringing private capital into public infrastructure projects will give the economy an extra boost," Shishkov said.
For the sections handed to a concession, the minister said how drivers pay will be settled when the contracts are signed. He said drivers won't pay twice for using the same stretch of road.
The money now collected from vignettes isn't enough for new roads or for maintaining the ones we have, Shishkov added. That, he said, shows the current way of funding roads is wrong.
In early September, Shishkov inspected work on Plovdiv's ring road. He had already said then that under a 2030 EU directive, Bulgaria's roads will become toll roads. He explained the directive requires a single, uniform way of charging, so the roads need to be made ready before then — first designed, with the best solutions found for the country, and only then handed over to concession.