Bratislava is unlikely to be connected to the rest of Europe via a high-speed railway link, MEP Jaroslav Paška (Slovak National Party/SNS) said at the European Parliament session on Tuesday.
Paška pointed out that European lawmakers approved the proposal on the EU directive for the development of a Trans-European transport network on Tuesday that re-defines railway routes, and the construction of which the union will support by 2050. The Priority Project 17 (PP17) was planned from 2004 but has since been re-routed and no longer continues from Vienna to Bratislava, instead going through the Hungarian city of Gyor to Budapest and Ukraine as well as southeast to Turkey. The Member of Parliament emphasised that Slovakia represents the only country in the Central European region with no high-speed railway link built from shared EU resources, which includes taxes paid by Slovak citizens. Paška also pointed out that the European Commissioner for Transport Siim Kallas stated during an EU parliamentary debate on the proposal that all EU members gave their consent to the new routing of the rail corridors, including the Slovak Government. Paška was the only Slovak MEP criticising the manner in which the European Commission administratively handles the Bratislava railway link. The MEP called upon the Commission to also take the stances of regional and local authorities into consideration.
