Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, announced the building of Europe’s largest border crossing with Serbia and Chinese partners during the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Szijjártó announced that the new border crossing will connect Serbia and Hungary, and will be Europe’s biggest, safest and fastest. “The Röszke border crossing is busy. Unfortunately, we are all familiar with photos of long car and truck queues there”, the Hungarian foreign minister added.
A government decree about building a border crossing at the Hungarian-Serbian border appeared on 4 March in the Hungarian Gazette. The decree called ministers concerned to compile a feasibility study for a so-called “Röszke 3” expressway border crossing. Furthermore, the decree requested preparatory works to build a new border crossing at Tompa.
Röszke border crossing. Source: FB/Katalin Novák
The M5 motorway leaves Hungary to Serbia at the Röszke border crossing. Röszke 2 is for those who do not want to travel from or to Serbia on motorway. The government aims to create a Röszke 3, another motorway border crossing.
Tompa does not have a motorway connection, and Telex suspects the Orbán cabinet would like to extend the Hungarian expressway system there. The Hungarian news outlet found out how.
Currently, the M5 motorway is one of the busiest in Hungary, giving place for transit between Western Europe and the Balkans. János Lázár, Hungary’s construction and transport minister, terminated more than 270 construction projects in 2023. Later, he gave the green light to 24. Two are expressway constructions. They aim to connect Serbia with Hungary’s least busy motorway, the M6.
Hungarian motorway. Photo: FB/NÚSZ Zrt.
The M6 connects Pécs with Budapest, but the traffic is not significant, since it leads to East Croatia. The Orbán cabinet now seems to work on diverting at least part of the Western Balkans traffic (goods and guest workers) to that expressway, which is why Tompa is so important. Tompa is not far from Szabadka, a Hungarian-majority city in Northern Serbia, where trucks and cars can continue their journey on Serbia’s busiest expressway, the A1.
The Szabadka sign vandalised in Vojvodina, Serbia. Source: Facebook/Dr. Pásztor Bálint (VMSZ)
The development would establish an alternative route between Serbia and Austria without placing an unbearable burden on Hungary’s M5 motorway.
According to Telex, one of the disadvantages of Hungary’s road system is that every motorway leads to Budapest’s ring road, the M0. The government should build East-West motorways, but such ambitions are not part of the short-term plans.
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