Strabag Section of M30 Back in Operation after Defects Rectified

After nearly two years of closure and an intense dispute between the Hungarian government and Austrian construction firm Strabag, the M30 motorway near Szikszó has reopened fully to traffic as of Tuesday.

The critical section of the M30 motorway between Miskolc and Tornyosnémeti (northeastern Hungary) was officially opened to traffic at 10:30 a.m. on December 30. According to the operating company MKIF Zrt., this means that all restrictions in this area have been lifted.

M30 motorway on December 30, 20225. Photo: MTI/Vajda János

The 57-kilometer motorway linking Miskolc with the Slovak border at Košice was completed in 2021 at a cost of 180 billion forints (about €466 million). However, the sense of achievement was short-lived. Just two and a half years after opening, in February 2024, a section near Szikszó had to be shut down after a 150-meter stretch of the road suffered severe subsidence and slippage.

Hungary’s Minister of Construction and Transport, János Lázár, used strong language on social media to mark the reopening. He accused construction firm Strabag of acting in bad faith while addressing the defects. “During the restoration of the M30 motorway after it sank, Strabag tried to rip us off, but we put them in their place,” he wrote.

To step up the pressure, the ministry called in a bank guarantee worth two billion forints (around €5 million). Only after this amount was secured did the ministry authorize the motorway’s final reopening on Tuesday,

he explained.

As Hungary Today previously reported, a section of the M30 motorway was closed on February 17, 2024. The reason for this was significant road displacement and cracks in the pavement. It turned out that the road had subsided due to construction defects – a serious issue that occurred less than two and a half years after the section was handed over in October 2021.

As the affected section is considered a warranty road, Strabag AG had to cover the entire cost of repairing the defects. Back in March 2025, Hungarian Minister of Construction and Transport János Lázár confirmed that the entire section would have to be completely rebuilt due to the damage. The intensive repair work finally began on February 17, 2025.

The repair work, that is estimated to have cost between 4 and 5 billion forints (10-13 million euros), turned into a test of patience. The section was originally supposed to have been completed by the end of October.

However, Strabag later denied having made a binding commitment to this deadline. Another deadline in mid-December also passed at the last minute before the opening finally took place at the end of the year.

The government is drawing conclusions from the incident, said János Lázár, emphasizing that lessons had been learned from the problematic cooperation with Strabag. From now on, the motorway will be subject to continuous condition checks in order to detect further subsidence at an early stage, the minister promised.

For transit traffic between Hungary and Slovakia, this ends a long period of detours that had placed a heavy burden on the residents of the surrounding settlements in particular.

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