Vucic, Varhelyi attend signing of EU grant agreement

Tanjug/ Strahinja Aćimović

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and European Union (EU) Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi attended Tuesday on a train travelling from Belgrade’s Prokop station to Ripanj the signing of an agreement on the first tranche of an EU investment grant for the construction of a Belgrade-Nis fast railway within EU’s financial package for the Corridor X railway project.

Vucic told Varhelyi that the construction of this fast railway will allow to travel between Belgrade and the city of Nis in just an hour and a half, while the trip from Budapest to Nis will take roughly four and a half hours. The President briefed the European Commissioner on all the current railway projects in Serbia.

The agreement on the grant was signed by European Investment Bank (EIB) regional director Alessandro Bragonzi and Serbian Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Goran Vesic.

The European Union will provide a €2.2 billion financial package for the project: a loan of 1.1 billion euros from the EIB, a 550 million euro EBRD loan, and a donation of 598 million euros from the EU of which 265 million euros has already been approved.

Vucic said the Belgrade-Nis railway will be completed by 2027 and that trains will travel on it at the speed of 200 km/h.