Slovakian tunnel in funds dispute

There are questions over the funds available for Slovakia’s Visnove Tunnel project. A former Transport Minister believes that the Transport Ministry will face challenges finding €664 million needed to build the tunnel, which forms part of the D1 highway.
March 16, 2012 Read time: 1 min
There are questions over the funds available for Slovakia’s Visnove Tunnel project. A former Transport Minister believes that the Transport Ministry will face challenges finding €664 million needed to build the tunnel, which forms part of the D1 highway.

According to the former minister, 2875 Slovakia’s Ministry of Transport has €41 million/year in the budget for 2012-2014 when 1116 European Union funds are excluded from the picture. This €41 million/year is however already allocated to other transport projects.

To fund the tunnel, the Ministry of Transport may well have to ask for funds from the 1054 European Investment Bank but no agreement has been made to date. Some €150-180 million/year may be required for the five and a half years needed to complete the project, according to estimates.

However the current Transport Minister has said that the claims are not accurate, adding that €481 million was allocated for the national motorway company NDS in 2012. According to the serving Transport Minister funds from the EU funds amount to €259 million, co-funding to €47 million while there is some €175 million for projects built without EU funds.
Road Structures

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Slovakia’s Cabinet to have final say on D4 Bratislava bypass
    February 9, 2016
    The government of Robert Fico has said it will decide the fate of the controversial €1 billion Bratislava bypass, the D4 motorway project, possibly ahead of a national parliamentary election next month. Fico, who also was prime minister from 2006-2010, was re-appointed after leading his Direction Social Democracy party (SMER-SD) to a landslide victory in the 2012 parliamentary election. His party won 83 seats and formed an absolute majority government, Slovakia’s first since 1989. Controversy continue
    Read More
  • Duha and Salini Impregilo to build Slovakia D1 motorway stretch
    April 23, 2014
    Slovak national motorway company NDS has chosen the consortium consisting of fellow Slovak construction company Duha and Salini Impregilo of Italy as the winner of the public procurement tender to build a 13km stretch of the D1 motorway. The Lietavska Lucka-Visnove-Dubna Skala stretch of Slovakia’s D1 includes the 7.5km long Visnove tunnel and is a tender worth nearly €410 million. It is expected that Skanska and Doprastav, which were excluded from the competition, will appeal against NDS' tender award dec
    Read More
  • Poland's ambitious highway construction plans
    July 10, 2012
    The European football championships are among a number of things pushing Poland's ambitious highway building programme. Patrick Smith reports. Poland is planning to spend a colossal €4.57 billion on road projects in 2009, a 35% increase over the previous year. T
    Read More
  • Tunnel Boom in Central and Eastern Europe
    September 15, 2015
    Following the success of the 41st World Tunnel Congress held in Croatia last May, World Highways looks at two signi_ cant projects in Slovakia and Serbia – Adriana Potts reports Central and Eastern Europe is buzzing with a number of major projects being developed - including highways, bridges and tunnels – and with many more in the pipeline. The region is expected to be highly active with plans for developing infrastructure in the next two decades, according to Davorin Koli , president of the Croatian
    Read More

Highlighted Content