Hungarian foreign affairs minister Peter Szijjarto believes that Budapest and Bucharest should be connected by a high-speed train.

In a joint press conference with the Romanian foreign affairs minister Teodor Melescanu, the Hungarian counterpart said that the project of a high-speed train linking Budapest to Bucharest, via Cluj, should be a priority, reports local Mediafax.

According to the Hungarian minister, the transport infrastructure in Europe is developing mainly on the railways.

“We believe that a high-speed train project linking Budapest to Bucharest, via Cluj, should be a priority. So, probably the connection between Budapest and Cluj will be developed in a first phase, and then, in a second phase, the two capitals will be connected by a high-speed train,” Szijjarto said.

The Hungarian minister also said that two highways would link Hungary to Romania by 2020, compared to only one at present.

Moreover, a bilateral project on energy security between the two countries is also on the way, so that in 2022 it will be possible to transport 4.4 billion cubic meters of gas between Romania and Hungary, Szijjarto added.

At present, the trains in Romania are circulating at rather slow speeds, mainly due to the bad shape of the railway infrastructure. For example, a direct trip by train between Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest currently takes between 9 hours and over 13 hours.

The road infrastructure is also in rather bad shape. Although Western Romania is connected to Hungary and Western Europe through a highway, this high-speed road does not cross the Carpathians to reach the capital Bucharest. Thus, only few cities in the Western part of the country actually benefit from it.

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Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com