Hungary: Europe’s bottlenecks are making us consider “100 trainsets from China”
Hungary is considering buying “100 trainsets from China” as it looks for a quick fleet solution and frames it as a response to European bottlenecks that slow new rolling stock getting into service.
Transport Minister János Lázár outlined the idea during a transport briefing, saying Hungary is in talks to procure the trainsets and suggesting they could enter service in around two years. He presented it as part of a wider push to ease fleet pressure and address capacity constraints.
Hungary argues the real bottleneck is manufacturing capacity — factory slots and long lead times. After delivery, authorisation, interoperability work and the maintenance setup add further delay.
What would make it real
The timing also intersects with the reopening of the modernised Budapest–Belgrade railway on the Hungarian side, which the minister has said is due by mid-March.
To move from talk to a tender, Hungary would need to get a new fleet through EU authorisation and into a stable operating setup that ultimately determines availability: approval documentation and testing under the TSI framework, compatibility with the signalling and train-control system on the network (including ETCS where relevant), and the maintenance fundamentals — depots, spares, diagnostics and long-term support.
Why it matters: Hungary is turning a fleet shortage into a systems critique: Europe’s bottlenecks are too slow for its capacity problem, so it is prioritising scale and tempo over business-as-usual procurement.
China context: Hungary has already built a visible working relationship with Beijing on rail-linked infrastructure, so “Chinese trainsets” is an easier option for Budapest to put on the table publicly — and potentially pursue — than it would be for many EU peers.