Rail Baltica: Development of functional & institutional framework for common cross-border infrastructure management system for the Rail Baltica railway line

The European Commission is supporting and partly financing the development of the Rail Baltica high speed rail connection, a cross-border rail infrastructure passing through the three Beneficiary countries of this project: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and connecting these three Baltic countries through the respective port terminals with Finland, as well as to Poland, where the Technical Support Instrument (TSI) has previously also supported aspects of the development of the future Polish high speed rail system. This is an important element of improving the overall connectivity between EU Member States, whilst at the same time improving the decarbonisation of the overall transport sector, which is an important element of the European Green Deal.

Context

The Rail Baltica is a planned railway infrastructure project that aims to connect the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania with a modern, high-speed rail line. The project includes the construction of a new 870 km rail line that will link the capital cities of Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius, as well as providing connections to the rest of Europe.

Support to be delivered

The tree Member States wish to develop common approaches in certain spheres of the management of this infrastructure, to break down national administrative and regulatory silos for the rail infrastructure to operate as a genuine cross border transport mode. The project will deliver AS-IS reports and gaps analysis on the current state of play as regards the management of Public Service Obligations (PSOs), and the management of infrastructure in the three countries, which will also serve as a basis for recommendations for improvement in terms of harmonising the national approaches (together with a roadmap for their implementation). As regards PSOs, this work will allow the authorities to have different possible systems of harmonisation assessed through multi-criteria analysis. As regards infrastructure management, a certain basic model of how the three countries want to work together has already been agreed, and therefore the TSI supported work will focus on which further steps are necessary to make this model operational, in particular as regards a common charging framework and capacity allocation framework for the Rail Baltica. Finally, as regards the financial aspect, the contractor will be tasked to identify all possible additional public and private sources of finance to ensure that the overall Rail Baltica financial model is coherent with the source of finance for all PTOs of the Rail Baltica.

Expected results

The deliverables are expected to result in the following outcomes:

• Outcome 1: Effective and unified cross-border PSOs model for the Rail Baltica developed.
• Outcome 2: Effective regulatory environment and a functional institutional framework for a common infrastructure management system of Rail Baltica developed.
• Outcome 3: A comprehensive model for the successful financing of the Rail Baltica PTOs developed. 

Although subject to other contributing factors, the tasks and deliverables of the contract and the associated outcomes should over the longer-term contribute towards the successful completion of the Rail Baltica rail line and thus improved sustainable mobility and connectivity for the three Member States.