The final section is to connect the Krzyżowa junction with the Polish-German border crossing at Jędrzychowice. The motorway will run, among other places, near Bolesławiec. The investment will cost €245 million, and the route is to be completed within 19 months of the start of construction.

The Lower Silesian Voivode ordered corrections because environmental-protection requirements changed while the project was being prepared. The Natura 2000 programme, which included the Bory Dolnośląskie forests, imposed requirements on investors in similar projects concerning the height of barriers and soundproof screens. Special animal crossings must be built beneath the road.

"The deficiencies identified by the voivode's services should be corrected in March. If that did not happen, the investment would be at risk, but since these are not fundamental deficiencies, we will correct them and the entire investment process will not be disrupted," Janusz Koper of the Wrocław branch of the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways told reporters.

Once construction begins, the section from Bolesławiec to Jędrzychowice will be built first. Expropriation proceedings concerning landowners are still under way on the Bolesławiec–Krzyżowa section. They concern a dozen or so plots. However, Koper assures that the investment can be carried out in such a way that this disputed section is built last.

Several months ago, another 92-kilometre section of the A4 motorway, between Wrocław and Krzywa, was opened. It cost €163 million. The completion of this section of the A4 means that it is now possible to travel from Kraków to Krzywa along a single 381-kilometre motorway route. Intensive preparatory work is under way on the remaining sections of the A4, so that the entire route from the German border to Rzeszów can be completed in 2013.

The A4 motorway is one of the most important routes in Poland. It forms part of Pan-European Corridor III, which runs from Dresden in Germany to Kyiv in Ukraine via Wrocław, Katowice, Kraków and Rzeszów.

(PAP/KG information)