Sofia Airport: government has concession scrutinised with IFC's help
Transport Minister Peev wants tighter control of the concessionaire. Investments in runways, aprons and safety matter more than the outstanding fee, he says.
Archive image · Photo: Apostoloff / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped and resized)
Bulgaria is tightening oversight of the concession for Sofia's Vasil Levski airport. Transport Minister Georgi Peev and his deputy Hristina Velinova met representatives of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, Eurocom reported. With its help, the economic balance of the contract is to be analysed and its formula defined more clearly; payments to the treasury are also to resume. "The biggest question is not only whether the concessionaire will start paying the annual concession fee," Peev said. What matters, he said, is whether the necessary investments are made on time – for instance in runways, aprons and taxiways.
The background is a dispute that has been simmering for months. According to a Mediapool report in June, the concessionaire SOF Connect obtained a ten-year deferral of the fee in 2021 through an annex because of the pandemic, shifting around 255 million euros to the final years of the concession. The state put the 2026 payment at 40 million euros, the concessionaire offered 9 million and, according to the ministry, demanded 70 to 80 million euros in compensation for runway repairs. The 35-year concession was signed in 2020.