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

On May 30^th, a meeting of high ranking Baltic experts is planned to prepare the text of the agreement. This should demonstrate that there is a common understanding of the project on the government level.

EDL representatives admitted that it has been difficult to achieve an agreement with Lithuania. „There is intense work with representatives of this country on different levels,” they said at the Saeima committee meeting.

It is planned that the agreement will be signed in June. It is not excluded that first a bilateral agreement might be signed, and the third country might join later.

As reported, the Rail Baltica project deals with construction of a new 1,435 millimeter standard-gauge railroad in the Baltic countries. The European Commission has allotted Latvia EUR 238 million for the first round of the project.

By 2020, the Baltic States will receive a total of EUR 442.2 million (co-funding of 81.82 percent) for this project.

The Rail Baltica II project seeks to re-establish a direct connection between the Baltic states and the European railway network. The project is expected to facilitate regional integration by means of a railway link from Helsinki that would link Tallinn, Riga, Kaunas, Warsaw and Berlin and might potentially be extended to Venice.