Rail Baltica has been granted an additional 19.7 million euros (22.86m USD) in funding.
This is thanks to a Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) cross-border grant agreement between the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) and a joint venture of the Baltic States RB Rail AS, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia, the Ministry of Transport of Latvia and the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Lithuania.
The CEF will contribute 16.7m euros to the total budget of the agreement. The remaining 15% will come from Baltic State governments.
Since 2014 there have been seven EU-funded Rail Baltica projects, totalling more than 950m euros. This will be the last in the 2014–2021 financial period.
This funding will cover a number of activities including the design of Kaunas, Lithuania’s Phase 1 railway infrastructure and maintenance facility, and Pärnu County planning in Estonia.
The new agreement also covers work in Latvia, including design modifications to enable Riga Node operational developments, the modification of Riga Central Station railway section’s detailed technical design, and identification of unexploded ordinance in the former Cekule military area.
Financing has been granted for a chainage and geodetic reference network development study across the Baltic States and IT architecture development strategy.
“The additional Connecting Europe Facility and Baltic States funding not only once again reconfirms the strong commitment of the EU and Baltic partners to this unique cross-border project, but will also enable us to finalise the remaining planning stage works, accelerate the global project delivery by starting design procurements of missing links on the critical Kaunas - Lithuania/Poland border section as well as Kaunas – Vilnius, and facilitate start of mainline construction procurement in Latvia.
“It also includes several important studies such as delivering the next generation cost-benefit analysis and business plan for Rail Baltica. Finalisation of the already started design-type activities for railway facilities and mainline to reach readiness for construction remains the utmost priority between project partners.”
