14.07.2015
The application submitted by the three Baltic states in February to build Rail Baltica received a positive response from the European Commission at the end of June.
The European Commission's funding decision was unanimously approved by EU member states on 10 July. The total amount of the initial application was 540 million euros for the three Baltic States, of which Estonia will receive approximately 213 million. The European Commission is financing 82 percent of the total cost of the first funding application for the project, and the money can be used from 2016. 60% of the initial funding will be used for the construction of the railway, 40% is planned to complete preparatory work, such as technical design, ordering terminal solutions and acquiring private land along the route.
This is the first large-scale financing of the entire project – the support amounts necessary to continue the railway construction will be applied for during the following funding periods. Latvia was allocated approximately 291 million euros for the Rail Baltic project, Lithuania 28 million and the RB joint venture 7 million euros. The railway section in Poland, which is part of Rail Baltic, also received a positive decision. In total, approximately 700 projects were submitted to the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) as applications for a total amount of approximately 36 billion euros, and 276 projects received funding for a total amount of approximately 12 billion euros. This is the largest single investment in transport infrastructure in Europe. As a part of this, Rail Baltic demonstrates the importance of the railway project to the European Commission.
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