BUCHAREST - The Austrian heavy construction group Strabag and French counterpart Vinci threatened Romania with legal action Thursday after plans to build a highway between Bucharest and the central city of Brasov were frozen, statements from the two companies said.
"Strabag representatives will search for all legal means to get authorities to respect the contract," the Austrian group said, adding it was surprised to learn from press reports that Transport Minister Dheorghe Dobre would suspend the public-private partnership.
Vinci said its directors would meet next week to "decide on the possibility of filing a complaint against the Romanian state".
"Even though we negotiated with the transport ministry for almost a year, we had no information regarding the contract's future, our letters went unanswered and we just learned the bad news from press reports," said Vinci director for Eastern Europe, Joel Petit.
The French group had announced in October a 480-million-dollar contract to build a 37-kilometer-long (23-mile-long) section of mountainous highway that was to include 37 bridges and four tunnels, one of them 2.7 kilometers long.
But shortly after taking office in late December, Romanian Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu announced that his new center-right government would review contracts granted without competitive tenders to several companies, including Vinci and US rival Bechtel.
The latter had won a 2.5-billion-euro deal to build another highway across northern Romania.
According to Tariceanu, the contracts "raised many questions regarding their legality and their financing, and had provoked irritation in Brussels."
On April 25, Romania signed an accession treaty with the European Union, paving the way to join in 2007 pending the successful pursuit of reforms in the areas of justice and home affairs and competition policy.
05/05/2005 15:52 GMT