Four international consortia have submitted their bids for the feasibility study for the construction of a broad-gauge railway line between the Eastern Slovak city of Košice and the Austrian capital Vienna. A Vienna-based company, which is jointly controlled by the Russian, Ukrainian, Austrian and Slovak rail companies, will select the winner of the tender in June 2014.
The project has been received with mixed feelings in Slovakia. The Government supports it but the Opposition argues that hundreds of people in Eastern Slovakia working in the current cargo terminal in Čierna nad Tisou and the associated reloading stations would lose their jobs. "Slovakia can't afford to finance such a project from its state budget at present. Moreover, it's insane to fund a project that will take work away from Slovakia using the money of Slovak tax-payers," claimed the vice-chairman of the Social and Christian Democratic Union, Viliam Novotny in the past. According to Slovakia's Engineering Industry Association President Alexej Beljajev, Slovakia's economy shouldn't suffer any harm due to this project. "Nobody would want to see materials such as coal and iron ore, which amount to around 80 percent of the current cargo volume flowing along the broad-gauge railway to Slovakia, reloaded in Vienna. This will remain the domain of Čierna nad Tisou in the future," he said.
