DUI: Two years of delay and €30 million extra — Vredi restarts the Skopje–Blace highway
DUI says a finished section tendered in 2023 now costs about €210 million after more than two years of delay.
DUI accused the political group Vredi on August 26, 2026 of delaying a finished highway project and allowing its cost to rise by roughly €30 million.
The party noted that the Skopje–Blace highway section was completed on May 2, 2023 and was put out to tender later that year by the previous government, with an original estimated value of about €183 million.
In a statement, DUI highlighted what it called a reversal of criticism into acceptance. "Two years ago, Vredi and their political partners attacked the project as 'too expensive' and 'inappropriate.' Today, without changing either the route or the design, after needlessly delaying it for more than two years, the same highway of about 10 kilometers will be built for about €210 million, or approximately €21 million per kilometer. So the project they criticized has not changed even by 0.1 percent. The route is the same, the design is the same, the highway is the same," the party said.
Questions over the increase
DUI pointed out that the key differences between the original plan and the present decision are the delay and the higher price: about €210 million in the new figures compared with the roughly €183 million earlier — an increase of around €30 million overall.
In its second paragraph of criticism DUI demanded explanations from Vredi: "Vredi must answer the public: why was a finished project blocked for two years and why does the same project cost about €30 million more today? Where does this money end up and what is the explanation for this price increase? Albanians lost two years for a vital highway, while citizens will pay tens of millions of euros more. Two years of delay, €30 million more expensive and not a single change in the project — that is the bill for Vredi's incompetence and poor management," the statement added.
The party framed the issue as both a loss of time for affected communities and an additional financial burden for taxpayers, and called on Vredi to explain the reasons for the blockage and the cost escalation.
Photo: press material from the event
