The Rail Baltica railway project has been granted an additional €295.5 million in European Union support. Of this, Lithuania will receive €94.9 million, according to Lietuvos Geležinkeliai (LTG), the country’s state-owned railway group, which announced the funding on Friday.
Rail Baltica is a major infrastructure project aiming to build a high-speed, standard European-gauge railway connecting the Baltic states – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia – with the rest of the European rail network.
According to LTG, an agreement for the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) grant will be signed in the fall.
“The strategy for the successful construction of megaprojects is to avoid any lengthy delays, and it is the EU funding that ensures the implementation of the Rail Baltica project,” said Egidijus Lazauskas, CEO of LTG, in a press release.
Lithuania has already secured €1.6 billion in funding for the project up to 2030 and is seeking an additional €4 billion.
A joint report from Baltic auditors published in June 2024 estimates that a further €10-19 billion may be required to complete the planned works across the three Baltic countries, including €8.7 billion in Lithuania alone.
The entire Rail Baltica route is scheduled to be completed by 2030, while the link between Lithuania and Poland is expected to be finished by 2028.
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