Of course, there is an alternative route from Greece to Hungary, through Romania and Bulgaria who are now fully paid up members of the EU and due to join Schengen before the end of the year. But, despite the map, personal experience tells me that this isn't really feasible. Following considerable investment, the road from the Greek border to Ruse (main crossing into Romania - the ONLY bridge across the Danube between the two countries) is halfway reasonable from what I've seen, although much of it is only single carriageway.

And then there's Romania. Romanian roads are a disaster. Due to the amount of traffic they are deteriorating faster than they can be repaired. Bypasses for towns don't exist and the roads in towns are often cobbled, rutted or even unpaved. Also signage is....well it could be improved. And it's hard not to see that going via Ruze and Bucharest is far from the most direct route to Central European markets from Athens and is really best suited for traffic to Turkey.

A new motorway urgently needs to be built from the E75 turnoff for Szeged in Hungary through to the E90 in Thessaloniki in Greece, preferably crossing the Danube in Western Bulgaria. But although everybody says it will happen, I have seen no sign of a new major road being marked out. This must mean that, even if the route is agreed, work cannot start till next year at the earliest and consequent completion dates must be set for 2012/2013 at the very best. Although realism suggests closer to 2020.

And that's too late. Whatever happens with the politics of the Middle East, oil supplies will have begun to noticeably diminish  with consequent ramping up of the price of fuel: Including diesel. Quite simply, by the time the motorway could possibly be finished price will be forcing changes in economic patterns of business resulting in trans-continental road transport becoming less of a factor in european affairs during the next decade. This applies to Eastern Europe with its awful roads just as much as to the West.

Which suggests that, rather than build a white elephant motorway that cannot be completed in time to have a useful life, for longer term economic development maybe Europe should concentrate on building a decent railway network (even more urgently needed) in Bulgaria and Romania with probably a high speed link linking both Istanbul and Athens to Vienna  and the rest of the european hi-speed network. It will be considerably more expensive, but they'll probably get some long term use from it

Course we could just repair relations with Serbia, which would solve everybody's problems. The Bulgarian section of the road from Belgrade to Istanbul is easily the best road in the country. It was Bulgaria's (and Turkey's) route to properity. After all, sending everything through the E75 in Serbia was the original best laid plan, but its kinda gang aglay.