🇹🇷 / 🇽🇰 NEW: Turkish military conducts sniper training with Kosovo security forces amid regional tensions.

@balkan_grad

🇷🇸 URGENT: Serbia's Cultural Heritage Department resists demolition of the Complex of the General Staff for luxury hotel construction in Belgrade.

@balkan_grad

🇷🇸 / 🇦🇺 / 🇪🇸 NEW: Novak Djokovic refuses interview after Australian journalist insults Serbian fans; advances to Australian Open quarterfinals to face Carlos Alcaraz.

@balkan_grad

🇲🇪 NEW: Protests in Podgorica with nationalist and religious slogans; revival of the 'Krstu služimo, Milošem živimo' movement.

@balkan_grad

🇷🇸 Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic resigns as large-scale student protests continue!

🇷🇴🛣⚡️ 2024 was a huge year for infrastructure construction in Romania.

If at the end of 2023, Romania reached the milestone of 1000 km of motorways + 71 km of expressways, it will end 2024 with close to 1300 km of motorways and expressways. 124 km of motorways (and expressways) were opened between January and November of this year in several places. 111 km are expected to be finished by the end of the year !! The southern half of the A0 motorway surrounding Bucharest is nearly complete and will be finished in early 2025, which will mean an uninterrupted link from Constanța to Pitești.

This year also saw the opening of close to 100 km of the A7 motorway from Ploiești to Pașcani. The cities of Focșani and Buzău will now have a high speed road linking them bypassing the very dangerous DN2 highway, with a high accident rate. Lastly, the expressway between Pitești and Craiova is complete with a tiny portion of just 12 km remaining which will be finished in early 2025 and will allow for uninterrupted high speed road travel between Craiova and Bucharest for the first time.

One has to wonder though, why did Romania lag behind in motorway construction all of these years and managed to pull off record milestones in 2022, 2023 and 2024 in terms of infrastructure. 2025 and 2026 will continue this trend as by 2027 it is expected to be able to travel from Bucharest to Pașcani on motorways and from Nădlac all the way to the Turnu Roșu Pass on the A1 motorway with the last remaining parts of the A1 motorway expected to be finished by 2028 which would allow for uninterrupted travel from Constanța to Hungary.

Well, the reason why Romania never built up infrastructure with the speed it does today is because of the EU. The EU had a keen interest before in finishing the A1 motorway from Nădlac to Bucharest and it was built with relative speed from 2012 to 2015ish, at least the part linking the Hungarian border with Sibiu with a small gap left between Deva and Lugoj.

The COVID pandemic and the advent of the National Resilience and Recovery Plan (PNRR) saw the EU give Romania the necessary funding to finish the last sectors of the A1 highway, the Margina-Ilia gap and the tunnels under the Carpathians in between Sibiu and Pitești. The PNRR also provided funds for the A7 motorway which will finally link the region of Moldavia with the rest of the country as Moldavia had been ignored by motorway planners for nearly 30 years. Of course, this is because the EU wants to increase trade with Ukraine and Romania is the most important gateway.

This is why the EU will never finance a motorway between Brașov and Bucharest. It doesn't serve it any purpose as it doesn't increase trade between anything which Brussels finds important.

@Wallachian_Gazette