ATHENS, July 13 (Reuters) - Greek lawmakers approved an amended deal on Tuesday to allow it deploy European Union recovery funds to pay for the final leg of a key motorway that has been held up for years by spending cuts imposed during the financial crisis.

After years of delays due to lack of funding, Greece built four toll highways as part of concession deals with private contractors.

But it struggled to complete construction work for the last 70 kilometres of a 182-kilometre-long motorway intended to link central and northern Greece and facilitate trade with Europe through the western port of Igoumenitsa.

"A project which has been suspended for 15 years is now being unblocked," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said during a parliament debate. "Through painful efforts, we have managed last January to get, at last, the green light for the financing."

Greece will get nearly 450 million euros out of total funds of 31 billion euros it has secured from EU's 750 billion-euro fund to build the final part of the so-called "E65" motorway.

Construction group GEK Terna has built about 7% of the final leg of the toll road and is expected to complete the rest in three years. (Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Aurora Ellis)