Bulgaria is replacing broken guardrails on its main roads under an emergency procedure, while the Road Infrastructure Agency checks which stretches are most at risk. Regional development minister Ivan Shishkov said this in Haskovo.

On the road between Karnobat and Burgas, crews are putting up three-wave barrier systems with a higher containment class. Engineer Mitko Poryazov, head of the Burgas regional road office, confirmed the work back in July.

Work started "five, seven or eight days ago," Shishkov said during his visit as part of the "Regions Speak" initiative. Crews are fixing the worst spots first, where barriers are destroyed and drivers have no protection at all. On the Maritsa motorway alone, at least 15 stretches still have damaged, unrepaired guardrails, he said.

The public procurement for the barrier systems has been called off, and the ministry is looking for another legal way to get the work done. The urgent repairs now fall to the state company Avtomagistrali. Shishkov told parliament's regional committee on 9 September that he is waiting for its offer to maintain and replace the damaged barriers. The road agency is also drawing up a schedule for which stretches get fixed first.

A working group at the ministry is reviewing the rules on road barrier systems and what class each one needs to meet. "I'm waiting for this working group's results, so we can find out whether there's lobbying going on or not," the minister said.

Guardrails became one of the biggest road safety problems this summer, after a string of crashes in which trucks broke through the barriers dividing motorway lanes.

Shishkov has also ordered checks on construction sites whenever there's a report or officials have doubts, without waiting for a formal complaint. Inspectors will look both at the procurement paperwork and the quality of the construction itself. "That doesn't mean we'll check everything. But it could turn out we do check everything — it depends on what we find," he said.

The checks start with the repair of the Atanas Sharenkov art gallery in Haskovo. The minister inspected it before meeting local officials. "I have doubts about how the structural reinforcement of the building was carried out, and that's why I want us to check it," Shishkov said. Work on the site has been under way since February. The gallery's buildings are listed as immovable cultural heritage of local significance.

Checks will be especially strict on projects funded with public or EU money. The minister says inspectors should focus on checking work while it's still under way, since problems can be caught before a project is signed off. He argues state funding shouldn't be judged only by how much money gets spent, but by quality and results. That rule, he said, applies to roads, buildings and anything else the state pays for or commissions. Shishkov also announced tighter checks on existing contracts for major road projects.

The second big topic at the meeting with mayors from Haskovo province was water. The problems are many: pumping water takes a lot of energy, some comes from wells, and the local water utility is in poor financial shape, the minister explained. About 70 km of worn-out water mains and long pipe runs don't help either. Shishkov says what's needed are fixes that cut losses and lower power use, not another round of short-term patch-up jobs. He declined to name a specific plan for Haskovo, saying experts haven't yet finished studying the water sources, the network and what investment is needed. He assured the mayors that finished projects meeting funding conditions won't be shelved.

Full design work is starting on the Ruse-Makaza motorway, part of the government's plan for north-south transport links. The Ruse-Byala section and the Byala bypass are already under construction and should be finished by the end of 2028. For the Veliko Tarnovo-Makaza stretch, the preliminary design and detailed development plan are expected in about a year and a half. For the part of the route not yet designed, the government is looking at a public-private partnership with an outside investor. How the stretch to the Greek border will be financed and built will be decided once the design work is done.