EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, Legislation, Railways, Transport

Latvia applies for the entire EUR 240 million available from the Connecting Europe Facility's Cohesion funds. Together with the co-funding, the total amount is EUR 294 million.

Latvia is planning to launch implementation of the Rail Baltica project by development of a technical project for the railroad's section going through the central part of Latvia, reconstruction of the Riga Central Railroad Station and related infrastructure, construction of a railroad station at the Riga International Airport, and construction of railroad section connecting the Central Railroad Station and the Riga Airport.

The application will be examined by the European Commission, and the agreement on the EU funding for the project could be signed in the fall this year.

According to Transport Minister Anrijs Matiss (Unity), Rail Baltica is the largest public railroad infrastructure project in a hundred years, and a major cross-border project with high added value.

Attached to the application for the Connecting Europe Facility funding and the joint support letter signed by the Baltic transport ministers are support letters from the Polish and Finnish transport ministries.