2 weeks Ago
Podeli : Nikola Jovanovic of the Center for Local Self-Government (CLS) said the current government has neglected the Belgrade metro project as the state’s new priority is now organizing the EXPO 2027 exhibition. Jovanovic told the Beta news agency that there is no funding for the metro in the budget, and that the entire project is now highly uncertain. He said there are three main reasons for abandoning the planned metro construction.
“The first is that the new government priority is EXPO 2027, and all other major infrastructure projects have been put to the backburner. The second reason is that there is simply no money for the metro project. The Belgrade city budget is empty, and the state budget doesn’t have enough funds for the metro either.
The third reason is that the planned metro routes do not meet Belgrade’s traffic needs, as all studies show, so this is another factor hindering progress on the project,” explained Jovanovic. Commenting on the state of the city’s public transport system, Jovanovic said that Belgrade is on the brink of total collapse. “The management of traffic is poor, ad hoc solutions are being implemented, public transportation is getting worse, and the tram network is neither being used nor expanded.
Belgrade is lacking new boulevards, bridges, and the metro, but no one is thinking about these issues,” Jovanovic said. According to the proposed budget and the recently approved revised Fiscal Strategy for 2025, with projections for 2026 and 2027, the amount allocated for metro construction is 11 times smaller than that originally planned. Metro construction officially began on November 22, 2021, although former Belgrade mayor Sinisa Mali had promised during the 2018 election campaign that the metro would be completed in 2022.
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