Subotica-Szeged rail line reinstated after eight years

SUBOTICA - After eight years, a rail line between the Serbian city of Subotica and the Hungarian city of Szeged was reinstated on Tuesday.

To mark the occasion, Serbian Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Goran Vesic welcomed his Hungarian counterpart Janos Lazar at the Palic railway station near Subotica.

Vesic noted that Serbia and Hungary were friendly countries and that the reinstatement of the rail line was yet another step that showed that no two countries or peoples were cooperating better than Serbia and Hungary or Serbs and Hungarians were at this time.

"Two years ago, our leaders Aleksandar Vucic and Viktor Orban connected this rail line and, today, we have an opportunity to have five trains operating daily between Subotica and Szeged. Those are trains of friendship and they will be very useful to people on both sides of the border," Vesic said.

He said a high-speed rail line between Belgrade and Budapest would be a culmination of the good bilateral relations and that a section from Belgrade to Subotica would be completed by May 2024.

"Also, the construction of a Subotica-Baja rail line is ahead of us, and that is Serbia's and Hungary's plan for the future."

Lazar said the reinstatement of the line was not merely a symbolic event, but something that would really work.

"Serbia has helped an old plan of ours materialise because today we can say that we, Hungarians and Serbs, stick together and that Hungary and Serbia stick together. This day and this line are a symbol of that togetherness," he said.