Baltic States – CIS, Construction, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Funds

According to Prime Minister Juri Ratas, the eastern border will definitely need to be constructed to guarantee the security of Estonia as well as the Schengen area partners. "Our eastern border is also the external border of NATO and the European Union, which makes constructing a quality border even more important," he said, adding that it would also help impede illegal migration as well as human and weapon trafficking, protect the market and stop contraband trade.

"The border project has not halted for one second and we will continue building the eastern border at full speed, moving upward from the common point on the Estonian-Latvian-Russian border," Interior Minister Andres Anvelt said, commenting on Thursday's decision. He added that it is wrong to talk about the border getting more expensive as the cost of 190 mln was talked about in the PPA project and the sum has stayed the same.

According to Anvelt, Thursday's decision showed that the project solution presented by PPA in February is objective and appropriate -- it corresponds with the ambitions set for the border construction. This has been also verified by the independent expert company IB Telora, the state real estate management company RKAS as well as the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex).

"With available resources we will at once start building four border sections, totaling 33 kilometers. When building the next sections and applying for funding from the state budget, we need to take in account the assessment of RKAS of the construction market -- that the costs of the project might, but don't have to, grow up to 7% a year," Anvelt said.

"Border construction is Estonia's strategic investment and we will take this message to the European Union's next budgetary period negotiations," Anvelt said, adding that the government wants to use as many external resources for the border construction as possible.

During the present budgetary period, Estonia can use 37 mln euros of investments for constructing the border. "Considering that investments connected to security, safety and border protection are growing on the European level, we can definitely hope to get additional investments from the next budgetary period for constructing the European Union's external border," the interior minister said.