Tomorrow, Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, will visit Edirne, Türkiye to attend the inauguration of the Çerkezköy–Kapıkule section of the Halkali-Kapikule railway, a key transport link connecting Istanbul and the Bulgarian border. This project, which received €275 million of EU grant financing under the Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA II), is a first deliverable of the EU’s cross-regional Connectivity Agenda that connects Central Asia to Europe via the South Caucasus.
The new high-speed railway connection will significantly improve connectivity between Türkiye and the European Union and will contribute to reducing transit times along the Middle Corridor, linking Europe via Türkiye with the South Caucasus and Central Asia. The inauguration, which will be attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, marks the ongoing connection between the EU and Türkiye. Prior to the event, Commissioner Kos will meet the Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu.
Connectivity remains a priority for the Commission, and the inauguration follows Commissioner Kos‘s attendance at the International Conference on Corridor VII today in Sofia, Bulgaria. At the conference she participated in a panel discussion on the geopolitical context of Corridor VIII, chaired by the Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Velislava Petrova-Chamova.
The Halkali-Kapikule railway is the largest infrastructure project to date in EU-Türkiye cooperation, having received €275 million of EU grant financing under the Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA II). The objective of the EU’s cross-regional Connectivity Agenda is to strengthen transport, energy and digital links between the European Union and Central Asia through the South Caucasus and the Black Sea region by coordinating strategic investments and regulatory cooperation.
(For more information: Guillaume Mercier – Tel.: +32 2 298 05 64; Bridget Moylan – Tel.: +32 2 298 28 44)
