Cluj-Napoca’s three flagship infrastructure projects, the metropolitan beltway, the metropolitan train and the long-promised metro, are all facing serious problems in early 2026. While each project was promoted as a solution to the city’s worsening traffic and mobility issues, recent developments show delays, failed tenders, funding gaps and growing public frustration.
Metropolitan Beltway: Contract Frozen Amid Allegations of Fraud
The Cluj Metropolitan Beltway, designed to divert transit traffic away from the city, has been effectively suspended once again. The project is now blocked due to a legal dispute involving the winning construction consortium.
One of the companies listed in the consortium, the Bosnian firm Integral Inženjering, claims it never agreed to participate in the bid and that its documents were used without authorisation. According to infrastructure watchdog groups, Integral formally refused to join the partnership in 2024 and later discovered in 2025 that it appeared in the bid submitted through Romania’s public procurement system.
The company notified Cluj City Hall, anti-corruption prosecutors and EU authorities in September 2025. Despite this, the issue only became public in January 2026, when the contract was formally suspended.
Mayor Emil Boc confirmed the suspension and stated that the city has forwarded all documentation to criminal investigators. He described the situation as an internal legal conflict between consortium members and said the municipality cannot continue while the matter remains unresolved. The city has since requested approval to hire external legal counsel.
In early February, Boc issued an ultimatum to the companies involved, giving them ten working days to resolve the dispute or risk unilateral termination of the contract.
Beyond the legal issues, the project is also facing major financial obstacles. Land expropriations alone are estimated to exceed 200 million euros. In 2025, the city requested approximately 600 million lei from the central government to cover these costs but received only a fraction of that amount. As a result, no advance payments were made and construction never meaningfully began.
At this point, experts warn that if the alleged bid irregularities are confirmed, the only realistic solution may be to cancel the contract entirely and restart the procurement process.
Metropolitan Train: Tender Fails, Project Reset
The metropolitan train project, intended to connect Cluj-Napoca with surrounding towns using existing railway lines, has also hit a setback.
In late 2025, the city launched a tender for the purchase of seven electric trains and related maintenance services, with a total estimated value of over 440 million lei. The funding was expected to come from EU transport funds, the state budget and contributions from local authorities.
However, by the deadline, no valid bids were submitted. Only one manufacturer expressed interest, but no admissible offer was ultimately filed. Under procurement rules, the city was forced to cancel the tender.
City officials acknowledged that the technical requirements may have been too restrictive and announced a market consultation to understand why manufacturers stayed away. Based on this feedback, the tender documentation is now being rewritten, with plans to relaunch the procurement process.
At the same time, a separate national-level tender is moving forward to modernise the rail infrastructure on part of the proposed route, suggesting that the overall concept of a metropolitan train has not been abandoned. Still, without rolling stock, the service cannot become operational, and the timeline has slipped further into the future.
Metro: Construction Advances Slowly as Funding Shifts
Cluj’s metro project remains the most ambitious and the most controversial of the three. Planned as a 21-kilometre underground line with 19 stations, the project has faced major financial and logistical challenges since construction officially began.
In 2024, the project lost roughly 300 million euros in funding originally allocated through Romania’s post-pandemic recovery plan, after administrative errors made those funds unavailable. Authorities later confirmed that the metro would instead rely on EU cohesion funds and state-issued green bonds.
In early 2026, the Cluj City Council approved a partnership with Bucharest’s metro operator, Metrorex, in order to remain eligible for EU cohesion financing. Under this agreement, Metrorex will provide technical support and expertise, but will not manage or control the project.
Despite official assurances, physical progress remains extremely limited. By late 2025, around 230 million euros had already been paid to contractors, yet construction progress stood at just over two percent. A Finance Ministry report released in January 2026 placed actual physical completion closer to one percent.
As a result, the completion timeline has quietly shifted from 2031 to 2032. City officials have also acknowledged that work will pause during winter periods, further slowing progress.
Technical difficulties, including extremely hard soil conditions, have delayed tunnelling work. In addition, the absence of a functioning metropolitan beltway complicates the transport of excavated materials and construction components, forcing heavy traffic through city streets.
Opposition councillors and independent experts warn that the combination of slow progress, rising costs and interdependent infrastructure failures could significantly increase the final price and delay completion by many years.
Growing Skepticism Among Residents
Public confidence in Cluj’s major infrastructure projects is visibly eroding, many pointing the finger at Boc himself, for overpromising and waging most of his electoral votes on infrastructure that has failed to materialise, despite over a decade of promises. City officials insist that none of the projects have been cancelled, many residents and observers point to a widening gap between announcements and tangible results.
Online discussions increasingly question whether the beltway, metro or metropolitan train will be completed within a realistic timeframe, or even at all. Even hardcore supporters of the projects acknowledge that without consistent funding, clearer accountability and faster execution, Cluj risks remaining stuck with unfinished plans rather than finished infrastructure.
For now, all three projects remain officially “in progress”, but early 2026 finds Cluj-Napoca with stalled contracts, failed tenders and a metro advancing at a pace measured in single-digit percentages.
