RB Rail, the joint venture implementing the Rail Baltica project in the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, has signed an additional cross-border grant agreement worth €928 million for funding through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme. Together with the co-financing from the three Baltic States, the total funding will exceed €1.1 billion and will support necessary activities to further develop the high-speed rail (HSR) infrastructure. This latest tranche of funding, together with funds secured from previous calls, now provides sufficient funding for the construction of 130 km of the 870 km Rail Baltica line. The grants were announced in June 2023 under the second call within the second funding period of the CEF's Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the period 2021 to 2027. The agreements were signed by the European Climate, Infrastructure, and Environment Executive Agency (Cinea) and RB Rail on behalf of the Estonian Ministry of Climate, the Latvian Ministry of Transport, and the Lithuanian Ministry of Transport and Communications. The funding will be added to the existing amount of over €1.6 billion previously secured for the project from the CEF and national budgets.
