Corridor 8: Bulgaria Says It's Waited Three Months for an Answer, Skopje Announces an October 8 Meeting
While Skopje announces a new meeting to move Corridor 8 forward, Bulgarian officials say they've been waiting three months for North Macedonia to decide whether it will actually work on the project or just keep talking about it.
Transport Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski and his Bulgarian counterpart, Grozdan Karadzhov, agreed on a new meeting to move work on the Corridor 8 railway forward, with a technical meeting announced for around October 8. The Macedonian side's statement presents the step as a continuation of the already-reached agreement on activities around the cross-border rail tunnel.
Yet a different tone comes from the Bulgarian side: Bulgarian sources say they've been waiting three months for Skopje to finally decide "whether we'll work or just keep talking" about Corridor 8, accusing the Macedonian Transport Ministry of manipulation and saying previous meetings were "technical meetings, not new negotiations," contrary to how they were presented in domestic media.
The gap in perceptions — a Macedonian side announcing a step forward and a Bulgarian side describing a three-month delay — suggests that the tunnel agreement and its ratification in the Bulgarian parliament don't automatically translate into moving construction activities forward. The October 8 meeting will be a concrete test of whether the pace gap between the two sides is actually narrowing.
MKNews Hub · Macedonia · October 5, 2026
