The Hungarian-Slovak Joint Committee for Infrastructure primarily focused on the current status of cross-border highway developments at their session in Budapest on 27 November, 2013. The bilateral expert working group for the coordination of tasks related to the construction of the new Danube bridge at Komárom has also had its first session.

The environmental licensing procedure for widening highway M15 into a 2x2 lane motorway is to be started in February, the Hungarian delegation headed by Minister of State for Infrastructure Pál Völner announced. The implementation of the project may commence in 2016 at the earliest. The delegation also revealed that, as part of the future Road M30, the 1.8 km connection between the highway section from Kosice to the border on the Slovakian side and the Ring Road of Hidasnémeti/Tornyosnémeti in Hungary would be completed by the end of 2015.

The Hungarian and Slovak parties agreed that the new bridge over the Danube at Komárom/Komárno should be constructed as the two countries’ joint investment, from EU funds. The coverage for the investment estimated to HUF 25 billion approximately could be raised from the budget of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).

According to the newly accepted order of business of the working group supervising the bridge construction, the body will have sessions at a frequency of at least six months. The working group is co-chaired by the ministers of state of the two competent ministries.

(Ministry of National Development, Communications Department)