Greens call for scrapping of EUR 130m Sofia airport project

Date: 15/05/03

By David Cronin

GREEN campaigners have called for a planned €130 million EU development project for Sofia airport to be scrapped, due to alleged flaws in assessing the work's environmental impact.

The Bulgarian authorities plan to open a new terminal and runway by 2005, but local activists claim that the impact assessments carried out to date do not fulfil criteria laid down in a 1985 EU directive on predicting ecological damage. Under this law, the activists say, the cumulative effect of the new terminal and runway on a range of environmental factors should have been considered in tandem.

Instead, the Za Zemiata (For the Earth) group complains that the effects of building a terminal and runway have been studied in isolation in two separate reports.

"These will function together in one whole project," said group spokeswoman Keti Medarova. "According to the legislation, there is a need for one whole report on them."

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has committed €60 million for the project, while a further €50 million has been earmarked from the Union's pre-accession funding for Bulgaria.

An EIB spokeswoman rejected the allegations, arguing that both of the studies are "comprehensive" and "cover the whole functioning of the airport".