Prime Minister Sobotka: The construction of a high-speed railway between Prague and Dresden is a top priority for the CR and for Saxony

On Tuesday 7 February 2017, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka met with the Minister President of Saxony, Stanislw Tillich at the Straka Academy. The main topic of the meeting was the deepening of relations between the two countries in the fields of transport infrastructure and economic cooperation. Prime Minister Sobotka and Minister President Tillich also discussed cooperation between the CR and Saxony in the field of science, research and innovation.

“Regular meetings between the Czech Republic and Saxony are a symbol of the close contacts the present Czech Government is developing with Germany. An important topic of today’s meeting involved the transport infrastructure. We agreed that our key project is a high-speed railway between Prague and Dresden, which would significantly reduce travel time, reduce the weight of traffic on the busiest connection between the CR and Germany and allow us to transfer part of our freight transport to rail,“ said Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka.

In the area of transport, Prime Minister Sobotka and Minister President Tillich also discussed their common interest in preserving the navigability of the Elbe river. An important step taken by Germany to move this project forward was the adoption of a document entitled Overall Concept for the Elbe, which sets out the key parameters of the river on the German side.

The main topics of the meeting also included the strengthening of bilateral economic relations between the CR and Saxony, specifically in the area of digitalisation and Industry 4.0. Prime Minister Sobotka also praised the functioning cross-border cooperation between the Czech and Saxon police forces, which has been in operation since October 2016 on a new contractual basis. The Czech Republic and Germany are providing bilateral support in enforcing legislation in the fight against drug-related crime at an EU level.

Contacts between the Czech Prime Minister Sobotka and the Minister President of Saxony Tillich have been extremely intense. Today’s meeting was the sixth time they had met during the three years the current Czech Government has been in power.