EU – Baltic States, Forum, Railways, Real Estate, Transport

The Deputy Mayor of Helsinki, Anni Milja Maaria Sinnemaki, said that Finland and Helsinki considered themselves part of the Rail Baltica project and were preparing to build a tunnel between Helsinki and Tallinn. Construction of Rail Baltica will make transportation of passengers and freight from Finland to Europe more convenient, she said.

The presentation of Rail Baltica was organized in Riga’s stand at the trade fair, and the Riga city government sent a message to potential investors, operators, developers and other players of the international real estate market about Riga as a key city in the Baltic region. Construction of Rail Baltica will increase Riga’s competitiveness. The would-be multi-modal center to be built at the Riga Central Railway Station will offer opportunities for connections between local, regional and international transport systems for convenience of passengers.

The Rail Baltica project involves the construction of a high speed rail line from Tallinn to the Lithuanian-Polish border. The track width will be 1435 mm according to the European standard, and passenger trains will travel at a speed of up to 240 kilometer per hour, while freight trains will travel at a speed of up to 120 km/h.

Rail Baltica will restore direct links between the Baltic states and the European railroad network, also facilitating regional integration by linking Tallinn, Riga, Kaunas (with a connection to Vilnius), Warsaw and Berlin.

Construction of the European gauge railway is expected to start in 2018 and the railway is expected to be completed in 2024–2025.

The central coordinator for the Rail Baltica project is RB Rail, a joint venture established by Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) committee in Brussels in July 2015 approved funding for the first phase of the Rail Baltica II project that would cover 81.83 percent of its costs. The estimated total eligible cost of the project’s Phase I is EUR 540.444 million, which means that the maximum EU financial contribution is planned at EUR 442.231 million.