EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region approaches problems such as transport bottlenecks, the insufficiency of energy interconnections and the challenges imposed by the increasing volume of sea-shipped oil. An action plan has been established presenting 15 areas and 80 projects focused on four pillars: environment, prosperity, accessibility, safety and security. According to the EC report on the improvement of internal and external transport connections, published in September 2011, several projects have been implemented within the Strategy.
Strategic activities on the coordination of national transport policies and infrastructure investments (regional cooperation has to be strengthened-implementation of interoperability projects, application of traffic management systems etc.) have been carried out, as well as TEN-T priority projects (which have to be implemented in time), development of long-run transport policies that will consider the recast of the TEN-T guidelines and identifying the missing connection in the transport infrastructure.
As regards cooperation activities, the accents falls on improving connections with Russia and the neighbouring countries (especially on implementing major projects in freight traffic and logistics).
One of the important points in the transport sector is “facilitating an efficient transport and developing logistics in the Baltic Region” by eliminating bottlenecks, promoting intermodal connections, developing the “Green Corridor” concept by implementing concrete projects on infrastructure development, supporting logistics services suppliers, establishing and harmonising administrative and control procedures etc.
The implementation of projects related to the Railway Freight Corridors will sti-mulate the competitiveness of the European railway market and will also provide an optimal connection between the network in the Region and the international freight transport network.
According to EC reports, priority TEN-T projects made progress in 2010. As for Rail Baltica, Lithuania initiated construction works on the Mockava-Šeštokai section and the final version of the Rail Baltica was presented in June 2011. As regards the project financing, the Transport Ministry in Latvia said that “for Latvia the project is estimated at EUR 1.27 Billion and we cannot afford to grant full financing, so we have to analyse if it pays. In this case, EU should grant more than 60% of the project cost”.
The total cost of the project is EUR 3.5 Billion (Estonia – EUR 1.04 Billion, Latvia – 1.22 Billion, Lithuania – EUR 1.27 Billion).
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