Motorways bring people on both sides of the border closer to each other, which is why the Hungarian government is trying to efficiently connect as many foreign territories as possible with the mother country through the road network.
According to the cabinet's plans, a highway will connect Nyíregyháza and Szatmárnémeti by the end of 2026, with the help of cooperation with the Romanian government, the Minister of Construction and Transport announced at the press conference on the M49 expressway under construction on Wednesday.
János Lázár said at the border of Nyírmeggyes in the Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg counties that Duna Aszfalt was able to start the construction of the first twenty-eight kilometer long section of the highway between the M3 highway and the Hungarian-Romanian border with an investment of about HUF 175 billion.
As a continuation of this, the other 17.5-kilometer highway section will be built to the Hungarian-Romanian border with an investment amount of HUF 150-160 billion, the minister said, adding that this will remove the obstacle to economic and social cooperation between the two regions.
The head of the ministry reminded that since 2010, approximately 900 kilometers of highway and expressway network development has been implemented in Hungary with an expenditure of approximately HUF 3,200 billion.
Last summer, the continuation of investments had to be stopped almost without exception, and the government's resources had to be reallocated to strategic objectives.
The most important such objective will be to take advantage of Hungary's "borderland" character, i.e. to play the role of a "bridge country" between European and Asian culture at the border of two worlds, east and west, as well as north and south, therefore it is very important to connect the different regions of the Carpathian Basin - said János Lázár.
He touched on the fact that the country's biggest highway investment in recent years was the construction of the Kassa-Miskolc highway, and I want to continue this program by connecting Nyíregyháza and Szatmárnémeti, Nyíregyháza and Munkács, and Békéscsaba and Arad by road, and Szeged and Szabadka by rail, the M6- os up to the national border, by expanding highway 6 into a highway in the direction of Szigetvár.
We also want Győr and Dunaszerdahely to be connected by a highway, so we have at least a dozen programs that connect nearby settlements in the Hungarian countryside with the help of highways and road networks, the minister said.
He emphasized that the M49 investment is important so that the Nyíregyháza-Debrecen-Miskolc triangle creates a new economic zone similar to Győr, created primarily to serve the automotive industry, and the workers here can get to their workplaces more easily.
After stopping all other highway construction, the government only approved the investment of the M49 in the fall of 2022, János Lázár pointed out, noting that discussions are also underway on the extension of the M3 to the Hungarian-Ukrainian border and the construction of the M34 planned to Záhony.
Works on the M49 are five percent complete, with the completion date for the first phase being autumn 2026 and December 2026 for the second.
In response to a journalist's question regarding the Hungarian-Romanian border crossing, he said that the Hungarian government specifically supports Romania's Schengen membership and will work to ensure that this can be realized as soon as possible during the Hungarian EU presidency next year.
Praising the importance of the construction of the M49, Gábor Kerskényi, the mayor of the RMDSZ of Szatmárnémeti, said that the feasibility study of the fourteen-kilometer road section connecting the border and the ring road of Szatmárnémeti has been completed on the Romanian side, the archaeological excavation has been completed and the technical plan is being prepared, and the expropriation procedure has also started.
Sándor Kovács, the Fidesz member of parliament for Mátészalka and its surroundings, spoke about how the highway will bring people living on both sides of the border closer in terms of both employment and infrastructure.
Attila Tilki, the representative of the Vásárosnamény electoral district, also from the government party, said that the M49 could bring Kassa and even Beregszász closer to Szatmárnémeti.
MTI
