Eight bids filed for Romania’s final A8 “Union” motorway section, incl. a short segment in Moldova

Romania’s National Road Investment Company (CNIR) reports that eight bids were submitted (26 January 2026) for Section 4 of the A8 “Union” motorway on the DN24 (Iași) – Prut River bridge at Ungheni alignment, the last motorway stretch toward the Moldova border.

The section is 15.5 km long, with an estimated value of RON 4.7 billion, and is to be financed via the SAFE (Security Action for Europe) programme.
The contract duration is set at 46 months (10 months design + 36 months construction).

A notable feature is that the package includes the first motorway kilometres on Moldova’s territory—reported by different sources as about 5 km (e.g., 4.7 km or 5.5 km, depending on how the cross-border connection is defined).
CNIR also indicates it will award additional points to any bidder committing to complete the 2.77 km link between the Golăiești interchange and the Prut bridge within 18 months.

The design scope includes 14 bridges/overpasses, 2 tunnels (the longest cited at about 1.76 km), and 2 interchanges, including connectivity toward Iași Airport and the future Regional Hospital.
Moldovan official reporting also frames the project as a strategic cross-border connection to the “Bridge of Flowers” at Ungheni and references a planned multimodal logistics hub near Berești station (Ungheni district).

IDR comment 

From a regional logistics perspective, the A8 Section 4 tender is less about a single road segment and more about hardwiring EU–Moldova connectivity at a key Prut crossing. The inclusion of a motorway fragment on Moldova’s territory in the same procurement package is institutionally significant: it reduces the risk of “infrastructure discontinuity” at the border and can accelerate corridor readiness for freight flows.

However, real impact will depend on synchronised delivery beyond construction: border-crossing capacity, access roads, land procedures, safety standards, and (critically) a coordinated plan for the adjacent logistics node. Without this governance layer, the cross-border motorway link may underperform relative to its economic potential.