Hungary and Ukraine will submit a €1bn plan to develop their common border area to the EU, officials from the two countries told a press conference on Monday.
The plan will include building two motorways and a freight crossing point, Hungary Today reports.
In addition, a two-year renovation and expansion of infrastructure in the town of in Astei, on the Ukrainian side border, will be undertaken.
Levente Magyar, Hungary’s parliamentary state secretary for foreign affairs, said: “We will also soon open the border crossing point between Nagyhódos and Velyka Palad, which will be the sixth crossing point.”
He said the planned integration of the European and Ukrainian economies would be “impossible” without the project.
The aim is to complete the programme of works by the end of the decade, by which time “we will have done our utmost to ensure that passenger and freight traffic between Ukraine and Hungary and the EU is unimpeded and at full capacity”, Magyar said.
Viktor Mykyta, the deputy head of the Ukrainian Presidential Administration, added that the huge volume of goods crossing the border would require improvements.
“Today we have taken a small but important step: the opening of the Astei crossing will ensure the flow of empty trucks to Hungary, and the first two trucks crossed from Ukraine to Hungary today.”
The work will be financed by the two countries, as well as private investment, with €9.6m from the EU.
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