Greece, Bulgaria and Romania signed a joint Action Plan in Brussels to establish an integrated multimodal transport corridor linking the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Baltic region, Greek Infrastructure and Transport Minister Christos Dimas announced.
The agreement for the Black Sea to Aegean Connectivity Platform was signed during the Connecting Europe Days event held on September 28 and 29 in the Belgian capital.
The initiative connects the Baltic-Black Sea-Aegean transport corridor with the Rhine-Danube route to create a single multimodal connectivity network across Southeastern Europe.
Dimas signed the document alongside the transport ministers of Bulgaria and Romania in the presence of European Commissioner for Transport Apostolos Tzitzikostas. European Coordinator for the Baltic-Black Sea-Aegean corridor Mario Mauro, representatives from the European Investment Bank and Greek Secretary General of Transport Stelios Sakaretsios also attended the signing ceremony.
The new platform serves as the mechanism through which the three nations manage regional transit infrastructure as a unified operational system. Dimas said that the value of a corridor was not the sum of its individual projects, but its operational continuity.
Rail projects and border links
Presenting the progress of Greek infrastructure projects included in the corridor design, Dimas highlighted major railway upgrades in northern Greece. A contract for upgrading the Alexandroupoli-Pythio-Ormenio railway line near the Turkish and Bulgarian borders is expected to be signed in the first quarter of 2027.
Contract signing for the Mouries-Promachonas-Koula project along the Greek-Bulgarian border is targeted for June of next year. Dimas added that work was also moving forward at Athens Railway Station, alongside plans to upgrade the SKA-Oinoi rail line.
A project connecting the Port of Thessaloniki to the national railway network is currently undergoing a tendering process with secured financing in place.
The port of Alexandroupoli in northeastern Greece and Thessaloniki on the Aegean coast serve as strategic logistics hubs connecting maritime trade routes to rail networks extending into the Balkans and Eastern Europe.
Funding priorities and military mobility
Dimas outlined key Greek priorities for the transport corridor, placing emphasis on the resilience of critical infrastructure, military mobility and using transport networks to drive European competitiveness.
He stressed the importance of the Connecting Europe Facility, the European Union funding instrument for cross-border infrastructure, in delivering complex regional projects. Dimas said that nothing could be implemented without a strong Connecting Europe Facility mechanism in the new EU multiannual financial framework for 2028 to 2034.
The minister underlined that the Greek government supported maintaining and, where possible, increasing the budget of the Connecting Europe Facility.
The Connecting Europe Facility provides targeted EU grants for transport, energy and digital infrastructure, while the European Investment Bank offers long-term financing to support European policy objectives across member states.
Supply routes to Ukraine
Looking ahead to the next phase of the initiative, Dimas raised the strategic necessity of expanding transport links toward Ukraine. He noted that connecting regional networks to Ukraine held growing strategic importance due to ongoing war conditions and the European Union integration prospects of both countries.
Dimas asked the platform to examine how transport infrastructure in Greece, Bulgaria and Romania could better support alternative, resilient supply routes in that direction.
Closing his statement, Dimas said that while ministers had created the political framework, they must now establish conditions where projects on both sides of international borders mature and progress at the same pace. He added that achieving synchronized progress would transform the Action Plan from a political declaration into an active implementation tool for a more connected, resilient and competitive region.
On the sidelines of the Brussels meeting, Dimas also took part in the launch ceremony for the Friends of South-East Europe initiative. The political platform brings together Members of the European Parliament, Transport Commissioner Tzitzikostas and European Investment Bank representatives to promote broader regional connectivity.
