Travel time from this Hungarian city to Serbia will be much higher than promised

Strategic links are being built between Hungary and Serbia in the areas of energy and transport, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said in Belgrade on Friday. One of those links will be a passenger transport train. However, its travel time will be much longer than officials promised before.

According to Telex, the trains are scheduled to start carrying passengers on 24 October. However, their travel time will be 75 minutes between Szeged and Szabadka (Subotica), even though the distance between the two cities is only 50 kilometres. Meanwhile, the Serbian infrastructure minister, Goran Vesić, posted in August that the trains will complete the journey in only 35 minutes. Furthermore, Alexov Lyubomir, the Serbian representative in the Hungarian Parliament, also talked about 40 minutes in a 2021 speech.

Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, said during talks with his Serbian counterpart that travel time may decrease significantly provided the border check ends. Before, construction minister János Lázár thought passport control might happen in Szeged, but that failed due to the obstruction of the Serbians. Therefore, trains will complete the 50-km journey in 75 minutes the least, which is not too competitive since you can do so in only 45 minutes by car.

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Minister: Strategic links being built between Hungary, Serbia

During the bilateral talks Szijjártó said Europe was currently facing some serious crises and the energy supply crisis especially stands out among these. Only those can feel safe that can create as many links in energy supplies with their neighbours as possible, he added.

The sides are in a good position with the launch of a regional joint gas trading company which has already been registered, he said, according to a foreign ministry statement.

Strategic links involve transport, gas, oil

“This is an important step forward from the point of view of the safety of our energy supply because practically we can harmonise Serbian-Hungarian gas purchases and Serbian-Hungarian gas trading, and the markets of two countries are far more interesting to international players than the market of just one country because together they are larger than either of them separately,” he added.

“This guarantees important security to us from the point of energy strategy,” Szijjártó said. The foreign minister said preparations for the construction of a crude oil pipeline between the two countries were under way. The pipeline will further increase the security of supplies, he added.

“We, Hungarians can sense this directly, since Ukraine and Croatia have increased transit fees several times,” said Szijjártó. Additionally, the capacity of the electricity grid connecting Hungary and Serbia was also being doubled with the project expected to be completed by 2028, he said. Szijjártó also said that the strategic links also involved transport, with passenger transport to start on the new Szeged-Subotica rail line on October 24.