Despite much tough talk, the governments of Bulgaria and Romania appear to be approving a new delay in the launch of Danube Bridge 2, succumbing to the demands of Spanish construction firm FCC.

The Transport Ministers of Bulgaria and Romania Alexander Tsvetkov and Ana Boagiu inspected Thursday the site of the construction of what is expected to become at some point in the future the second bridge linking Bulgaria and Romania over the Danube near at Vidin-Calafat.

The two ministers said they insisted that FCC should complete the construction of the bridge by the end of 2011 at the latest.

"The new delay of the launch of the bridge will incur losses to both countries," the ministers said quoted by Darik Radio.

According to Romanian Transport Minister Boagiu, 3 months ago FCC "promised" to complete the bridge by the end of 2011, while they have now demanded another extension until the middle of 2012. She and Tsvetkov said a delay till mid 2012 was unacceptable.

Interestingly enough, less than a month ago, the Presidents of Bulgaria and Romania, Georgi Parvanov and Traian Basescu confirmed the launch of the bridge in June 2011 citing information from the governments of the two states and their talks with the construction company.

On Thursday, however, Tsvetkov and Boagiu have revealed one more delay of six months, and a potential delay of six more months.

The so called Danube Bridge 2 (as opposed to "bridge 1" connecting Ruse and Giurgiu) was first supposed to be built by 2002; in 1999 such a bridge became very needed by NATO which was bombing Yugoslavia over the war in Kosovo.

As the situation in Kosovo was quieted down, however, international pressure for the Vidin-Calafat bridge abated leading to what appears to be a decade-long delay of a major infrastructure project. The land expropriation has taken a mysteriously long time to complete.

The current Bulgarian government has complained of the demands of the Spanish company FCC and has accused the previous governments of granting the construction of the project while leaving many legal loopholes that the contractors can use to blackmail the government for more money.