27 May 2009 | The construction of the Egnatia highway in Northern Greece is at its final stage, national media reported today.

As part of the election campaign, Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis will travel the length of the highway, between the western port of Igoumenitsa to the eastern Greek-Turkish border at Kipoi, and make stops in all the regions he passes along the way, the Greek newspaper Makedonia reported.

The Prime Minister will officially open the highway’s last stretch of the highway, which consists of the 31 kilometres between Panagia and Grevena and connects the peripheries of West Macedonia and Epirus. The completion works on that stretch, according to the publication, are expected to be finished by Saturday.

The Egnatia highway, or Egnatia Odos, is the Greek part of the European route E90 and connects the country to Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey. As a major highway in the country, it extends from Igoumenitsa to the border at Kipoi and passes by the towns of Igoumenitsa, Ioannina, Metsovo, Grevena, Kozani, Veroia, Thessaloniki, Kavala, Xanthi, Komotini and Alexandroupolis. The 670-kilometre highway’s construction began in the 1990s, and its total cost is estimated at 5,900 million euro.

The modern highway follows the direction of the Via Egnatia – the road constructed by the Romans in the second century BC, which crossed the Roman provinces of Illyricum, Macedonia, and Thrace, and ran through territory that is now part of modern Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey.

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