The European Union held a meeting of member state transport ministers on Thursday, and representatives of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania called for sufficient and stable funding from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) initiative, which is focused on major transfrontier infrastructure products.
“When allocating EF funding, more attention is needed to the matter of linking various regions of Europe,” Estonian Infrastructure Minister Vladimir Svet told the meeting. “Cross-border connections such as Rail Baltica are of strategic importance for the EU, and so they require long-term and stable financing.”
Svet added that construction work on Rail Baltica is proceeding as planned thanks to CEF funding, and work is on schedule for the railway to launch operations in 2030.
“Timely completion of this project is crucial,” the minister said. “Insufficient funding would slow down its implementation, and that, in turn, would endanger Europe’s climate goals whilst also impacting security.”
In this latter area, Svet believes that civilian infrastructure must also be suited for military needs, and so support for such infrastructure must be enhanced.
“Changes in the geopolitical situation mean that there is a significant increase in the need to invest in infrastructure which allows for the rapid and large-scale transfer of military assets in the region,” Minister Svet declared.
The minister also called for consideration of the needs of countries which neighbour the EU when planning funding, including Ukraine, Moldova and countries in the Western Balkans.
In other areas, transport ministers also discussed a new planned directive which would allow driver’s license suspensions for serious traffic offences such as drunk driving or causation of fatal accidents to be enforced across the European Union. Currently driving bans can only be enforced in the country where the original offence took place.
Lithuania’s transport minister briefed colleagues on the fact that supposedly meteorological balloons that are launched in Belarus have been entering Lithuanian airspace with increasing frequency. Such balloons are mostly used for smuggling, but the current geopolitical situation means that they could also be used for more nefarious purposes, an official from the Lithuanian Transport Ministry told the meeting.
On the fringes of the summit, Estonian Minister Svet met with the EU’s new transport commissioner, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, and the commissioner for defence, Andrius Kubilius to stress the strategic importance of the Rail Baltica project.
Source: BNS
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