„The result of our joint work with the European Commission is the EU’s support of transport infrastructure projects of strategic importance in Lithuania. This will help us provide a significant impetus to the further development of communication and military mobility links in the region and continuous integration with the West. In today’s geopolitical context, this is a key condition not only for the economic growth of the entire region but also for national security,“ said Marius Skuodis, Lithuanian minister of transport and communications.
A total of 89.6 million euros from the CEF funds and 79.6 million euros from the EUs Cohesion Fund have already been allocated for the implementation of the reconstruction of the Via Baltica sections from Marijampolė to the Lithuanian-Polish border, a total of about 40 km. All investments for the renovation of this road, including EU support, are planned to exceed more than 0.5 billion euros.
Lithuania has submitted applications for CEF dual-use transport infrastructure funding (including military mobility) and actively participated in all CEF calls. CEF support was received for the reconstruction of all sections of Via Baltica.
According to the scale of the new infrastructure being created and the construction speed, the Via Baltica modernisation is the largest road construction project in the re-established Lithuanian state’s history.
Currently, the reconstruction works of 12.5 km long sections of Via Baltica have already been completed. It is planned that the reconstruction of another 16 km long section near Marijampolė will be completed by the end of this year. Reconstruction works on the last 12 km along the Lithuanian-Polish border have already started and will be completed in the second half of next year.
Moreover, 8.6 million euros from the CEF are to be allocated to the infrastructure development project for the supply of electricity to ships in the Klaipėda Seaport, and approximately 5 million euros each for the implementation of digitization of the internal processes of Lithuanian Railways and the modernisation of air traffic management.
In addition, about 458 million euros will be additionally allocated for the construction of the European gauge railway Rail Baltica from Kaunas to the Lithuanian-Latvian border. In this most mature section of the project, construction is progressing on nearly 30 km of the mainline, with intentions to extend this to around 70 km by the end of the year.
The Connecting Europe Facility is the most important source of funding for the development of EU transport infrastructure. Lithuania has already received about 1.13 billion euros from this fund for transport infrastructure projects.
The need to strengthen the CEF, as well as provide more funds for military mobility on the European scale, was also stressed in the declaration signed by transport ministers of the Central European and Baltic countries in Prague in June of this year.