The Bulgarian State Railways are facing a crisis, again, whose roots go back to the time before Bulgaria’s accession to the EU in 2007. The cargo and passengers transported in the past ten years are down by half, with the decline in the number of passengers being most significant. And this is by no means due to an unwillingness to travel. Quite the opposite; however people nowadays have much higher requirements when it comes to comfort and speed.

The Bulgarian State Railways, a state owned monopoly company, has nothing to offer in terms of quality – the average speed of its trains is under 60 kph., the carriages and the engines are at least 25 years old and look like props taken from films about times long gone and forgotten. The chronic inability of the state railways to adapt to changing conditions and their aptitude to sink deeper into crisis after crisis is due most of all to the competition of the private sector but also to gross mismanagement. In point of fact no competition exists in railway transportation and it has remained a monopoly of the state. But the competition that shattered the peace of mind and emptied the pockets of railwaymen actually came from private bus companies who bit off an enormous chunk of the passenger volume by offering higher quality services but also higher prices. Whereas the management, despite the constant reshuffles, continues to be highly dependent on the political situation, whatever it may be at any given time.

The Bulgarian State Railways perceived the national budget cuts in its traditional subsidy from EUR 90 to 70 million as a deadly stab in the back. The shock is easy to understand – the company needs EUR 140 million a year whereas its earnings amount to a mere 47 million or so, i.e. around one third. Adding to this its debts amounting to EUR 285 million, the financial ruin of the Bulgarian State Railways is self-evident. And even the company’s management admits it is, in practice, bankrupt.

The less money, the lower the quality of the commodity or service – that is an iron-clad law of economics. Up to their eyeballs in debt, brought to their knees by the competition coupled with plummeting revenues – all this paints a grim picture for the Bulgarian railways that are now facing a complete stoppage, pure and simple. As things now stand any improvement or diversification of the quality of the services offered or tempting offers, any development or progress are simply out of the question. Without that, the company is slowly dying. This is a vicious circle that no one – neither government officials nor company management – can see a way out of. Not that they haven’t tried – there have been attempts at privatization, loans have been taken out in an attempt at modernization, old debts have been remitted, Brussels was coaxed into granting a EUR 800 million subsidy over the next seven years.

At present there is no coherent plan of reform or restructuring, the life-saving measures are down to cutting trains and staff. As of Monday, 38 trains are being dropped, another 10 had their paths curtailed. As of 1 February another 90 trains out of a total of 600 will be dropped and 1,500 railwaymen laid off. There are plans to have the rail connections scrapped replaced with buses run by the railway company itself. But these restrictive measures are definitely not to the liking of the railwaymen or of passengers, who are threatening protests. But can this lead to a lasting solution to the mountains of problems and turn on the green light for the Bulgarian State Railways? Hardly. The most we can expect is that it will bring into focus the old ailments at a state level, because the railway problems are not problems pertaining to one company, they are problems affecting the state as a whole and that includes its security.

English Milena Daynova