Bulgaria's Transport Minister Petar Mutafchiev said Monday he hoped the second bridge connecting Bulgarian and Romania over the Danube would be ready by 2010.

The Minister had a working meeting with the Mayor of the northwest Bulgarian city of Vidin Rumen Vidov, which was requested by Vidov last week.

The two discussed the cooperation procedures between the Transport Ministry and the Municipal Administration regarding the construction of the Vidin-Kalafat Bridge.

Mutafchiev and Vidov agreed that experts from the Vidin Municipality would participate in the monthly meetings of the Transport Ministry's special unit that manages the Danube Bridge 2 project.

"We cleared the minor misunderstandings between Vidin Municipality and the Ministry. We agreed without bringing in the political aspects that the local authority will be a partner in the realization of this significant infrastructure project", said the Vidin Mayor, who was elected in the fall of 2007 on the ticket of the Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov's GERB party.

Minister Mutafchiev explained that the Municipality could be a very helpful partner mainly with respect to the appropriation of the local plots needed for the construction of the bridge and for the adjacent infrastructure.

"We still have to resolve the appropriation problems with six plots but they were created by the previous municipal administration of the Mayor Ivan Tzenov from the Union of Democratic Forces", Mutafchiev said.

In January of 2007, the Transport Ministry was surprised by the fact that Vidin Municipality had sold part of the landed plots already designated as needed for the bridge construction.

Minister Mutafchiev also announced that the Spanish company FSS, which won the tender for the planning and the building of the Danube Bridge 2, was going to start the construction in April of 2008.

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