Romania Linked to European Highway Network

People from the western part of Romania can now easily get to Budapest or Vienna, using the new interconnection between Romania's A1 and Hungary's M43 highways.

Romanian authorities on Saturday inaugurated the 40-km-long segment of the Arad-Nadlac motorway and a new border checkpoint between Nadlac and Csanadpalota, in Hungary.

The A1 highway is planned to run from Bucharest to the western border of Romania. Less than half of the 700-km motorway is currently open.

"From now on, Romania is finally directly connected to the European Union through a motorway," Prime Minister Victor Ponta said at the opening ceremony.

Ponta added that by the end of next year, Romania will open another 150 km of highways, linking cities in southern and central Transylvania to the EU road networks.

Romania plans to build around 725 km of new highways and 1,809 km of express roads in the next 15 years, spending around 28.6 billion euro on the country's poor road infrastructure.

Around 6 billion euro are expected to come from the EU. The rest should come as loans from international lenders as well as from cash raised from a special excise on diesel fuel, road tax and public-private partnerships.

The country currently has around 700 km of completed motorway - not much for a country if its size, and far from the kind of network seen in many countries of Western Europe.

Romania opened 50 km of highway last year, less than half what it achieved in 2013.

In recent years, with help from the European Union, governments have tried to improve the situation, but none of the started projects has been fully finished yet.

Some projects had to be postponed or cancelled due to late payments from the government, or were stalled because of delays...

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