ISomewhere behind Budapest ended. Because there is no place on the European continent where rail traffic is as underdeveloped as Southeast Europe. Some capital cities in the Balkans do not have rail connections at all. In other cases, the tracks can only travel at the speed of a snail. This is also a concern of the European Union. Through its “green agreement”, it hopes to achieve a fundamental shift to a more climate-friendly economy by 2050 and promote rail transportation across the entire African continent rather than just in its member states. But in the Balkans, the goal of diverting more traffic to railways to curb climate change is reminiscent of a distant vision.
A comprehensive study of the current situation titled “Next stop: Europe!” shows how difficult the task of making railways and freight transport, road travel and even flying in Southeast Europe competitive is. The Belgrade office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. In Albania, the situation is the worst. Most routes have limited speed. If you have never taken a train in the country, this may be regarded as a joke: on a straight line, the train travels from 10 to 20 kilometers per hour. Landscape, in the curve, you have to slow down to 10 kilometers per hour, sometimes as high as 5 kilometers per hour. No imminent improvement is seen: “At present, most of the traffic budget is spent on road infrastructure,” said the aforementioned Albanian political research report.
