Baltic States and Poland Ask for Dedicated EU Funding for Rail Baltica in Next Budget

The heads of government of Latvia, Estonia and Poland, together with Lithuania's president, submitted a joint letter to EU leaders today during a European Council meeting in Brussels. The letter asks that the EU's next multi-year financial framework, covering 2028–2034, include dedicated funding for Rail Baltica. Rail Baltica is a new railway line meant to connect the Baltic states with Poland and the rest of Europe. The signatories are Latvian Prime Minister Kulbergs, Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

What the leaders ask for

The letter says the project can only be completed successfully with stable, predictable and targeted EU funding. The leaders therefore call for a specific allocation for Rail Baltica within the Connecting Europe Facility, the EU's infrastructure funding instrument. All four countries say they are ready to keep meeting their obligations and to cooperate closely so that the project is finished in a coordinated and timely way.

The security argument

The authors stress that Rail Baltica is more than a transport project. In their words, it is a strategic European investment in security, military mobility, connectivity, economic resilience and territorial cohesion. The letter states that it will strengthen the ability of the EU and NATO to move troops and equipment quickly across Europe's eastern flank. It describes Rail Baltica as the only project that simultaneously closes missing links in two European transport corridors and in the EU's priority military mobility corridor.

Kulbergs called the letter good news for the project's continued implementation. He said Rail Baltica cannot be built as three separate national projects, and that Poland is now at the same table. Construction must not stop, he said, so deadlines and work plans are being coordinated with the European Commission and Poland.

Progress and costs

The letter notes that almost half of the main route in the Baltic states is already under construction or prepared for it. First-phase costs in the Baltics could reach €14.3 billion, of which €5.5 billion is in Latvia. With indexation, the Latvian figure could rise to €6 billion. Under the latest cost-benefit analysis, total project costs in the Baltics may reach €23.8 billion. A 2017 analysis had estimated €5.8 billion.

The project involves building a new 870-kilometre railway line in the Baltic states on the European standard gauge of 1435 mm, with a maximum train speed of 240 km/h.