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HUNGARY-POLAND-CZECH-SLOVAKIA-TRANSPORT-RAIL
High-speed Budapest to Warsaw train plan unveiled
BUDAPEST, Oct 1, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Four Central European countries
announced Monday a plan to build a high-speed rail link between Budapest and
Warsaw, said Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.
The planned two-track line would allow train travel at 250 kilometres
(miles) per hour, with stops only at Budapest, Bratislava, Brno in the
eastern Czech Republic, and Warsaw, Szijjarto told Hungarian public media.
Potential funding options include a loan by the European Investment Bank
(EIB), Szijjarto said after a meeting of transport ministers from the Czech
Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — the so-called Visegrad 4 group —
in the Slovakian resort of Lake Strba.
Only around 14 percent of rail projects funded by the EIB so far were in
central Europe, according to Szijjarto.
“This will be a typical Visegrad project, with all the four countries
involved in talks on funding,” he said, without giving an estimate for the
cost of the project.
The public procurement procedure for a feasibility study would last for
half a year, while the study could be completed within two years.
“We would have liked that part to proceed faster, but our partners
requested that time period, given the scale of the project,” said Szijjarto,
without setting a scheduled completion date for the plan.
BSS/AFP/MRI/2235 hrs