Budimex, Poland’s construction market leader, has completed its first contract in Slovakia – a major highway junction near Bratislava, opened 90 days ahead of schedule. The project, worth €110.85 million, involved rebuilding the D1 motorway and connecting it with the D4 ring road, significantly relieving the Slovak capital from transit traffic.
The junction at the intersection of the D1 and D4 motorways was officially opened on 21 June 2026 during a ceremony attended by Slovakia’s minister of infrastructure. The investment, one of the most important in the country, allows regional and international traffic to be diverted before entering Bratislava, cutting congestion and improving air quality.
Budimex, which has been present on the Slovak market since 2021, executed the contract under a design-and-build formula. The scope included 160 structures, among them 18 bridges, 8 new motorway slip roads, and the modernisation of over 5 kilometres of existing D1 route. The company installed nearly 3.6 km of noise barriers, over 1,000 square metres of large-format road signs, and about 1.4 km of retaining walls.
A complex project under traffic
One of the greatest technical challenges was raising the elevation of the D1 – the busiest motorway in Slovakia – while keeping it open to traffic. This adjustment was necessary to align the D1 profile with the D4 route. Despite the difficulty, the junction opened 90 days ahead of the contractual deadline.
– For us it was a huge challenge, because this is the most complex contract in the entire Slovak Republic – said Cezary Łysenko, board member and operational director of Infrastructure and General Construction at Budimex, during the opening ceremony. He added that the completion of the last three slip roads made the entire eight-arm junction fully operational, allowing traffic to move from temporary roads back onto the main D1 carriageway.
The reconstruction was essential to improve capacity and provide a direct link to the D4 motorway. Before the junction was fully finished, earlier opened sections already diverted over 2,100 heavy trucks per day from the overloaded Prístavný bridge.
Looking for the next contract
Budimex has not secured any other Slovak contracts yet, but it remains determined to grow its presence. – There is a lot to do on the Slovak market, it only depends on the financial resources of investors like NDS and the Slovak railways. We want to build a portfolio that allows us to operate here long-term. We are looking for a contract worth at least €100–150 million – said Łysenko.
– We have shown we can successfully deliver major projects also in Slovakia – said Artur Popko, CEO of Budimex, expressing satisfaction with the completed investment. The company is already active in Germany, the Czech Republic, Estonia, and Latvia, treating foreign markets as a stabilising complement to its core Polish operations.
– Foreign markets are a supplement to our portfolio and a diversification of local activity. Poland will always be our key market, but working abroad stabilises our business. We would like to generate about 1.5 billion złoty annually from foreign contracts, or about 10–15 percent of our portfolio – Popko said in an earlier interview with WNP.
Źródło: wnp.pl, Fot. Michał Wroński / PTWP
