Neapoli–Agios Nikolaos road project faces delay as RRF safeguards initial section

The relevant decision of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport confirms the challenges faced by one of Crete’s most significant road infrastructure projects, which is being constructed by AKTOR. The project was originally awarded in 2022 with a scheduled completion date of September 2025 and a total budget of approximately €157 million, including VAT.

The 14.5-kilometre Neapoli–Agios Nikolaos road project was formally included in the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) in 2021.

In practice, however, the project proved to be more complex than initially anticipated. Delays in the handover of expropriated land, the relocation of utility networks, amendments to the environmental design, and the need to revise engineering studies resulted in the redesign of critical sections of the project.

The government and the Ministry’s competent authorities therefore chose to focus on achieving the milestone linked to funding under the Recovery and Resilience Facility.

Accordingly, the scope of works financed through the RRF has been limited to the section between chainage 1+800 and chainage 12+000, covering approximately 10.2 kilometres, which must be completed by 31 July 2026. The remaining sections will be financed through the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport’s Sectoral Development Programme.

This adjustment enables Greece to preserve the project’s eligibility for Recovery and Resilience Facility funding, thereby avoiding the risk of losing EU financial support. At the same time, it highlights the scale of the technical and administrative challenges associated with the implementation of major public infrastructure projects in complex permitting and land expropriation environments.

Furthermore, the competent authority acknowledged that the principal causes of the delays cannot be attributed to the contractor. Rather, they stem from institutional and administrative issues, as well as from the need to adapt the project to the requirements of the Recovery and Resilience Facility financing framework. Consequently, an extension of 487 days was approved, without the imposition of liquidated damages, together with a corresponding adjustment to the completion milestone linked to the project’s completion bonus.

Under the revised decision, the first interim deadline has been set for 28 February 2026, the second for 31 July 2027, and the third for 30 September 2027, while the overall project completion date has been extended to 30 October 2027.

For Crete, the project remains of strategic importance. This section constitutes a critical link in the overall upgrade of the Northern Road Axis of Crete (VOAK), a flagship infrastructure project intended to transform road transportation across the island and significantly improve road safety along one of Greece’s most heavily trafficked and accident-prone highways.