Budapest–Belgrade railway in big trouble, PM Orbán travels to Bejing to find a solution
The Budapest–Belgarde railway line is being built by Orbán-close Lőrinc Mészáros’ companies and Chinese partners. However, the Hungarian construction workers have now partially withdrawn from the site due to the renovation of the dilapidated Budapest–Győr line. The Chinese partners tried to take over but could not do the construction according to European standards. The cost of the project has also skyrocketed due to the insane inflation. According to VSquare, the Chinese have stopped working and funding the project. PM Orbán is flying to China to settle things in person in the autumn.
Railway line in trouble
Telex wrote that the construction of the Budapest–Belgrade railway line was decided by the government in 2014. In 2015, the Hungarian leaders agreed with the Chinese and Serbian parties. However, the construction contract was only signed four years later, in 2019. The line has been designed to allow trains to run at 160km/h, which requires the so-called ETCS train control system (which complies with EU standards) and safety equipment certified to EU requirements. According to the original contract, the railway line will be built by RM International Ltd., owned by Lőrinc Mészáros, and a consortium of two Chinese companies. As it seems, neither of them is capable of handling the ETCS system.
Problem with the Chinese technology
For some reason, the Chinese party thought that it would be acceptable to use Chinese technology. However, the Chinese system differs from the European in many ways, thus it does not comply with EU standards. Now, the Hungarian government has two options. One of them is to completely ignore the EU standards. In this case, trains will only be able to run at 100km/h instead of the planned 160km/h. The other option is to contract a new company to install the safety equipment and the train control system. However, this would delay the completion of the project by several years.
PM Orbán to travel to China
The issue of security devices has long been a source of growing tension between the Chinese and the Hungarians. We cannot know for sure exactly how far things have gone. However, according to VSquare, the Chinese have stopped financing the construction and experts have also stopped working on the project. The construction is 85% financed by Chinese loans and 15% by Hungarian state money, so the suspension of Chinese financing would be a major blow.
The conflict between the two countries has unsurprisingly reached diplomatic level. Despite that, it does not seem to have been resolved at lower levels. According to VSquare, PM Orbán will personally travel to the One Belt, One Road conference in China in October. Among other things, he will try to settle the issue at a higher level.
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8 Comments
That’s what Hungary gets when the Fidesz clowns make deals with China. This is Orban’s “Eastern Opening.” God only knows what they are going to end up building in Paks. This government is catastrophic for the country.
Cataclysmic MESS.
Poor Hungarian trashes have been voting for Fidesz since 2010.
An ex-Gas bankrupt fitter and plumber cannot be involved in any supermajor project.
It’s time for the European Union to conduct a thoroughly investigation of this parody project.
Another great success by our beloved Viktator.
Mészáros, China and the Viktator=huge corruption.
I’m skeptical about the market demand for this railroad but, in any case, whatever the problem is, the solution is never, ever China.
Has Hungary – from BORROWED funds paid anything into this PROJECT ?
We must have DEBT.
China, do not historically have a reputation to HONOUR contracts, example by Trade Agreements, which China treat as just another piece of paper.
The Orban plan of opening the Flood Gates to China, just spend time as I have in recent days, in the Hungarian Immigration Department, and the MASSIVE – Humongous – numbers of Chinese, wanting a bit of approved Migration paper, signed off and approved by Victor Orban.
The Chinese they have come and continue to come, under the personal invitation signature of the present Prime Minister of Hungary – Victor Orban.
China / Hungary – a recipe for DISASTER.
History NEVER Lies – and China’s fulfilment of CONTRACTS – APPALLING.
I’m sure there is a lot more to this story than is being mentioned in this article. No way the Chinese could not know about the EU having different requirements for railroad construction than China has. No way.
@crimeariver – if the regulatory requirements are not part of the spec sheets in the tender, then the Chinese do not need to research the matter. Besides – it was a consortium tender, so the most experienced partner (that would be the European one) should have picked up on this issue. Perhaps the company then newly formed for railway construction RM International Zrt. did not have sufficient experience (which usually gets you booted out of a tender).
In any case, if you are the government who issued the tender, you may want to closely scrutinize what exactly the offer entails (and what you are buying) before you sign anything.
https://industryeurope.com/sectors/transportation/hungarian-chinese-consortium-wins-budapest-belgrade-rail-contract/
So what exactly did we sign up for? We will not know key details of the project until 2030, since our Politicians decided to classify the details of the construction for 10 years. Beautiful.
https://www.reuters.com/article/hungary-china-railway-law-idUSL8N2D14V2