Vignette

The Bulgarian Road Infrastructure Agency reminds that the validity of the 2015 vignette stickers expires on Sunday.

New stickers can be purchased from more than 3300 points across the country including petrol stations, post offices, large retail chains, regional road authorities, border checkpoints.

A decision of Bulgaria's government to increase the prices of vignette stickers for motor vehicles from the start of 2016 has been challenged in court, Nova TV reported on Wednesday.

Protesters against the price hike from across the country have lodged a complaint with the Sofia City Administrative Court, challenging the legality of the decision.

The head of the Bulgarian Road Infrastructure Agency (API), Lazar Lazarov, assured on Tuesday that no roads in the country will be closed during the forthcoming holiday period.

Lazarov added that all repair works, which have been carried out on the Trakia and Hemus motorways during the summer and autumn, have been completed and the renovated sections have been opened.

More than two million of the new vignette stickers for 2016 will go on sale in Bulgaria on Tuesday despite the discontent and protests of drivers against their increased prices.

A total of 4.7 million vignettes from the different price categories and for the various categories of vehicles will be released on the market until the end of January next year.

Bulgarian citizens took to the streets on  Saturday to demonstrate against plans to rise prices for motorway vignette stickers.

Protests were held in several towns and cities such as Burgas, Varna, Vidin, Ruse, Sliven, Blagoevgrad, and Pazardzhik, with Burgas demonstrators severely disrupting traffic.

Protests against a planned increase in the price of vignette stickers for motor vehicles have been held across Bulgaria on Saturday, local media reported.

Protesters in Sofia gathered in front of Parliament building to demand that the government scrapped its decision for a one-off increase of up to 50% of the price from next year. 

The price of motorway vignette stickers in Bulgaria will rise from the start of next year, the government has decided.

Motor vehicles travelling on Bulgaria's motorways and first-class roads must have a vignette sticker attached to the windshield. The current price of the stickers was set in 2008 and hasn't been changed since then.

Citing analyses of the World Bank, Regional Development Minister Lilyana Pavlova has suggested that Bulgaria needs to substantially increase investments in roads and to increase road tolls.

Lazar Lazarov, Chairman of the Management Board of Bulgaria's Road Infrastructure Agency (RIA), has complained of the decades-long underfunding of the unit.

In a Tuesday interview for the morning broadcast of Nova TV, he pointed out that the only source of revenues for the RIA road repair budget were vignette stickers.

Ekaterina Zaharieva, Bulgaria's caretaker Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Regional Development and Investment Planning, has underscored the need to introduce a road toll system.

Zaharieva told journalists Thursday that a road toll system would guarantee adequate levy rates for the vehicles inflicting the highest degree of road damage, including as trucks and heavy machines.