RB Rail, a joint venture of three Baltic states responsible for the Rail Baltica project, has signed a new Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) grant agreement with the EU’s Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA).
The agreement, valued at €130m, will include up to €110m as CEF contribution.
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The Ministry of Economics and Communication of Estonia, the Ministry of Transport of Latvia and the Ministry of Transport and Communication of Lithuania were among the signatories of the agreement.
Thanks to the additional funding, various construction works in Lithuania are expected to be advanced. These include the construction of a bridge over the Neris river, access roads to railways for the whole section, as well as the beginning of preparatory works on the Pärnu–Latvian border section in Estonia.
Part of the funding will also be used to design the railway section stretching from Upeslejas to the Vangaži maintenance facilities in Latvia. It will also be invested into the completion of the preliminary technical design for the entire rail line and into the design phase of works.
According to the joint venture, part of the sum will also be destined to the identification of infrastructure components and other resources to enable consolidated procurement. The companies will finally use it to assess the supplier market to devise the ideal procurement and deployment strategies.
The total funding has been distributed among the three Baltic states, with Lithuania receiving €115.6m, followed by Latvia and Estonia with nearly €8m and €6m respectively.
This is the third agreement signed under the EU’s CEF grant arrangement. Overall, the total value of the EU grant for the Rail Baltica project is nearly €824m, including the new grant agreement, taking the total CEF contribution up to €683m.
