The Estonian Administrative Court has ruled that an application to produce an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the construction of a railway tunnel between Estonia and Finland must be reconsidered. It had previously ruled that a decision against the project by the Estonian Ministry of Finance and the Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory and Advisory Board (CPTRA) was unlawful. Finest Bay Area Development, the private company that wants to build the 103 km tunnel from Tallinn to Helsinki, sees the new decision as a significant step forward for the project. Finest had originally set a tentative opening date for the tunnel of 24th December 2024. The project is being coordinated by an ad hoc working group formed jointly by the Ministries of Environment of Finland and Estonia, which is reviewing whether the project complies with legal requirements, particularly with regard to environmental impact and international law. Following the court's decision, the EIA application from December 2018 will now be resubmitted. The new railway tunnel between Estonia and Finland has been included in the core network of the EU's Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).
