a research on the design of the bridge was financed by the PHARE program. In 2005 and 2006, consultants were hired to control all procedures in the building process and private companies were invited to send in a bid. In 2012, the cost of building the Danube Bridge 2 and its adjoining infrastructures raised to the sum of €226 million. Construction progress Construction officially began on 13 May 2007 in Vidin in the presence of Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev and Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe Erhard Busek. According to former Romanian Minister of Transport, Constructions and Tourism Radu Berceanu, construction was planned to be completed in 2010, with most of the construction to be done by Bulgarian subcontractors. Delay before and during construction The Bulgarian Ministry of Transport delayed the start of the construction at least three times before the inaugural ceremony. Soon after the official ceremony, trouble started. Vidin municipality had split up land that was needed for the bridge into smaller parcels. Since these parcels were sold out to different people, the Bulgarian minister of transport had to wait for a law that made it possible to expropriate the new landowners. These procedures slowed down the real start of the building process to a great extent. Between 2007 and 2009 not much progress had been achieved. Taking a closer look on the Bulgarian side, one could notice some preparation of the track leading towards the future bridge, with a small office being built. Meanwhile, the Danube riverbank was being prepared for the construction of a concrete factory. Trees on the small island on the Bulgarian side of the Danube however took a long time to be cut off. In 2009, it became clear that the building of the second Danube Bridge could not be finished by the end of 2010, since it had not yet really begun. Due to the failure to meet the original deadline, Bulgaria almost lost the financing of the whole project, but they were granted more time to finish the bridge by the end of 2012,. Construction becoming visible Visible construction actually started in 2009, on the Bulgarian bank of the Danube river. During the first year of rapidly building the concrete factory, FCC Construccion was preparing the segments for the bridge. The idea was to have these segments ready long before they were needed, so that the