Hungary will have a seaport again after 100 years

One and a half years ago, in July 2019, Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, announced that Hungary was going to purchase its own seaport to encourage Hungarian export to be conducted in the country’s own prospective seaport. This means that Hungary would finally have a seaport again after over 100 years.

According to Index, in 2019, there were two possible locations for the port. At first, the government wanted to purchase a port in the Slovenian Koper, but due to the worsening political relations and the different views of the two countries, Hungary ended up planning a different location. This is when they decided to reimagine the idea and started to negotiate with the Italian Matteo Salvini. The relations of Hungary were strengthening with the then-Minister of the Interior due to similar worldviews. Péter Szijjártó and the Italian Minister of the Interior announced in a press conference in 2019 that they had signed the contract and

Hungary managed to purchase a 300-metre-long port with 32 hectares of land area for €31 million as part of a 60-year concession contract in Trieste.

Index also wrote that, for a long time, no progress has been made, as certain conditions for concluding the contract and conducting the sale have not been fully met. The most recent and probably most major step in the process was made back on December 17, 2020. We know this as Péter Szijjártó, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, has confirmed the information to Hvg that on December 17, Aquila, the Italian company owning the concession, came under the full ownership of the Hungarian Adria Port, which the government founded just for this port project.