The Bulgarian-Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has handed Bulgaria's Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov, a declaration with special demands.

These include the abolition of the transit fees for passing through the so called Danube Bridge between Bulgaria's Ruse and Romania's Giurgiu, the only bridge connecting the two countries.

According to the Chamber, which is headquartered in Bulgaria's Danube city of Ruse, the bridge fees are an obstacle to the free movement of people and goods, and the full-fledged development of the bilateral economic relations. At the same time, they created conditions for corruption, and did not contribute to maintaining the Danube Bridge into a good state.

The businessmen also insist on the construction of a new highway connecting the city of Ruse with the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna; this would mean building a highway from Ruse to the city of Shumen, where the Sofia-Varna highway Hemus is already functioning.

The Chamber believes that the Ruse-Shumen-Varna highway was going to provide for connecting the Pan-European Transport Corridor No. 7 (i.e. the Danube River) with the sea port and international airport at Varna.

The declaration points out that Romania has already completed its highway from the capital Bucharest to the town of Giurgiu, and the potential existence of a highway from Bucharest to Varna would allow the development of intermodal transport means, and attracting international freight traffic.