A1 Sibiu-Pitești Motorway: Romania Borrows Another €500 Million from the European Investment Bank

The A1 motorway between Sibiu and Pitești, one of Romania’s most important and most delayed road projects, is getting a fresh injection of European money. Law no. 147/2026 approves the financing agreement signed by Romania with the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Bucharest on 15 January 2026 and in Luxembourg on 19 January 2026, under which the bank is making available another €500 million for the “A1 Motorway” Project. It is the second major tranche of a total €1 billion credit line agreed with the EIB: the first €500 million was approved under a separate agreement, signed back on 8 October 2025.

At the same time, the state is also moving forward with preparatory works for Transylvania’s other major motorway: the Government recently launched a new expropriation on section 1 of the Sibiu-Făgăraș Motorway, in Avrig, needed to relocate the utility networks blocking the construction corridor.

The law was adopted by Parliament on 20 July 2026 and promulgated the same day through Decree no. 422/2026, signed by President Nicușor-Daniel Dan. For the average reader, the key point is that the act introduces no new taxes and does not directly affect any category of citizens: it is the parliamentary approval, constitutionally mandatory, of a public state loan, an administrative step preceding any actual drawdown of funds from the credit line.

What it changes in practice

In practical terms, the law authorizes the Ministry of Finance to draw down the credit, in tranches of at least €50 million each, for up to 36 months from the signing of the agreement (that is, no later than January 2029). The money does not go directly to contractors: under the agreement, the amounts drawn first enter a foreign-currency account held by the Ministry of Finance at the National Bank of Romania and are used, under the same rules as any other public debt, to finance the budget deficit and refinance government public debt, alongside the settlement of the project’s actual costs from the budget of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure.

Technical implementation of the project remains, as before, the responsibility of CNAIR, which acts as the implementing agency under the authority of the Ministry of Transport and also manages, incidentally, the motorway network that the Government is separately equipping with electric charging stations. The Ministry of Finance must sign a subsidiary agreement with the two institutions setting out exactly each party’s rights and obligations in carrying out the agreement with the EIB. The Government also receives, through the law, the right to agree to subsequent technical amendments to the agreement, on condition that they do not increase Romania’s financial obligations toward the bank; any such amendment is approved by government decision, without the need for a new law.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

• A second agreement, not an amendment to the first: this is a new and distinct financing agreement (EIB number FI N°99.317), which supplements, without replacing, the agreement signed on 8 October 2025 (FI 98753). Together, the two agreements make up the total €1 billion credit line the EIB approved for this project.
• Explicit co-financing ceilings: the agreement sets out, for the first time at this level of public detail, two limits the EIB credit cannot exceed: the amount drawn from the bank’s loans cannot exceed 50% of the project’s total cost, and EU funds combined with EIB loans cannot exceed 90% of that same total cost.
• Total project cost officially confirmed: according to the agreement, the cost of the entire Sibiu-Pitești section, as estimated by the EIB, is €5,481,160,000 (VAT included) — of which €1 billion comes from EIB credits, and the remaining €4.48 billion from other sources (EU funds, the state budget, including VAT and land acquisition).
• Additional condition for sections 2 and 3: drawing down any tranche allocated to the Boița-Cornetu and Cornetu-Tigveni sections is explicitly conditional on development permits being in place for those sections, an additional contractual safeguard compared with the previous agreement.

Advantages and disadvantages

A similar administrative pattern appears in other major infrastructure projects: the state recently registered in the public inventory, years after it was put into service, the infrastructure of Metro Line 5, the Eroilor-Râul Doamnei section, a bureaucratic step required regardless of whether the project is a motorway or a metro line.

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