Vesić on Prokop: When it is done, let it be opened

Last week, the building of the "Belgrade Centar" railway station, which is not in the center but on Prokop, was opened with much fanfare. A day later, the building was visited by Goran Vesić, Minister of Construction, Infrastructure and Transport. Vesić informed followers on social networks that everything is in the best order, that the station works like a Swiss watch.

In an interview with the "Vremena" portal, Vesić talks about Prokop, the railways and whether the relocation of the station is due only to the desire to make money in Belgrade on the water.

"The decision to place the main railway station on Prokop was made in 1972, and construction began five years later." Therefore, the attacks on us that the station should not be there are senseless - because no government has ever changed the urban plan," says Vesić.

VREME: But, in the end, it was implemented in order to build Belgrade on water?

GORAN VESIC: Belgrade on the water is a consequence, but what does it have to do with these old plans? Someone a little smarter than all of us planned it back in the seventies. We first finished the first and second tracks, now the station building.

And every time you solemnly open them?

So if it works, let it be opened. We're not the only ones opening the ceremony. Regardless of all the stories, today we have an average of 870.000 passengers per month at Prokop, the new station building is designed for 1,2 million. To make this happen, we are building a new railway station in New Belgrade, integrated with the bus station. Belgrade is already big enough for several railway stations.

But you still lack stripes. President Vučić said in 2015 that the railway to Budapest will be in 2018. Five years have passed since then.

I can certainly tell you that it will be finished to Subotica by next year, and to Budapest, let's say, by 2026. We are also building a high-speed railway to Niš.

Why isn't it already over to Budapest when you promised?

I can tell you what we have been doing in the last year. The contract with the Chinese was supposed to end in mid-2025, and the railway will be ready next year.

Whose fault is it that it wasn't until 2018?

That was the plan, but maybe we didn't have the contract, maybe the Railways didn't finish the expropriation work on time - that happens with big projects. But I think it is less important whether the railway is completed in 2018 than whether it exists. Since we didn't even have it until now. I think it's good, and we already have a high-speed railway to Novi Sad, so now, two years earlier or later...

Are you a little uncomfortable when we hear from the authorities, especially from Vučić, that before people didn't know what a train was?

When was the last time you used the train? I'm from Kraljevo and I don't remember the last time I entered it. Who should use it if it goes ten or thirty kilometers an hour? When the president says he brought the train, he means that people started using the train again. When you have tracks that travel 100 or 200 kilometers per hour, then people start using the train. And so it is.

Let's go back to Belgrade on the water for a moment. Where have you seen a major city in Europe that has rivers like this without a railroad running parallel to the river and a train station not in the center of the city?

There is no need for the railway station to be in the center, because we are building the metro and the city railway at the same time. And such a railway junction was planned back in the seventies. I think it is good and important that Belgrade has two new stations and that we build them alongside the new railways. It is impossible for you to think that Belgrade should be cut off from its rivers by a railway, instead of using its banks. You have to make a decision - do we want to go to the rivers or not? If we want, then there is no railroad by the river.

How is it in the interest of the people of Belgrade to "go out on the river" with exclusive apartments and a shopping mall?

I think it is in the interest of the people of Belgrade that Belgrade develops, that it is built. We have arranged the coast and we will continue to arrange it. Part of it is, as you say, exclusive housing - although, when you build so many apartments, it can't be exactly "exclusive" and it isn't. And part of it is, say, a linear park.

You may be right that it is not that exclusive, many complain that it leaks and is not built well.

I don't know that. But so many apartments are definitely not exclusive. For example, Dedinje would be exclusive, and it was created much earlier. But now we also get a lot of public spaces along the river. The linear park revives the area along the river that was under the rails and neglected.

But, it seems, according to the system "our land - Arab profit".

I'm not sure that's the case. The contracts were approved by the Assembly. Why should there be no foreign investment in our country? As if there are no foreign investments in other European countries! And people who invest, of course, want to make a profit. What's the problem?

Read daily news, analysis, commentary and interviews at www.vreme.com