The European Commission Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), the joint venture between the three Baltic States RB Rail and the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Lithuania as well as relevant ministries of Latvia and Estonia signed, on November 18, a funding agreement on providing about EUR 180 million from EU funds to finance the development and works of the Rail Baltica project in the territory of Lithuania, says Lithuania’s Ministry of Transport and Communications. This sum will cover 85 per cent of the cost of the project’s future works.
“The signing of Rail Baltica agreements emphasizes the project’s maturity and is another step towards the final goal – constructing a European standard gauge railway line in the Baltic States by 2025,” says the Lithuanian Acting Minister of Transport and Communications, Rimantas Sinkevičius.
The EU funds allocated under this agreement will be used to extend the Rail Baltica European gauge railway from Kaunas to the border with Latvia, a 55km railway section. There is also a plan to carry out a feasibility study on expanding the European railway gauge built in 2015 in the section between the Poland-Lithuania border and Kaunas. Based on the results of the feasibility study, ERTMS and other systems will be installed.
This is a second funding agreement of the Rail Baltica project. Nearly EUR 710 million from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) fund will be allocated for the implementation of the Rail Baltica project in the Baltic States, with EUR 310 million of this amount earmarked for Lithuania.
Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia are going to submit an additional application before February 2017 under a third transport call for proposals launched by the CEF.
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