The Commission has approved investments of more than €114 million from the Cohesion Fund for the purchase of new electric trains in the Riga and Pieriga region, in Latvia; more than €158 million from the Cohesion Fund for the electrification of the railway section between Kaišiadorys and Klaipėda, in Lithuania, and more than €60 million from the European Regional Development Fund to improve the protection against floods in the Karlovac-Sisak Area, in Croatia.
- 21 April 2022
Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira, said: “I am happy about the approval of these three major investments for an eco-friendly public transport in Latvia and Lithuania and a secure system against floods in Croatia. These cohesion policy investments will significantly improve the quality of life for Latvian, Lithuanian and Croatian citizens.”
The investment in Latvia consists in the purchase of 23 electric multiple unit passenger trains for Latvian railways. New electric trains will replace a part of the outdated Latvian rolling stock, the attractiveness of the railways will be enhanced, and the annual number of public transport journeys undertaken in the country using environmentally friendly means should reach at least 2.7 million in 2023. On the same vein, the electrification of the railway section in Lithuania will reduce environmental pollution by contributing to a shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy in rail transport. The section is a component of the 423.9 km line linking Klaipėda with the Lithuania-Belarus border. Lithuania's electrified line currently accounts only for 8% of its railway network and, at the moment, the Klaipėda-Kaišiadorys section only uses diesel traction, whose emissions account for 3% of all greenhouse gases emitted by the Lithuanian transport sector. The electrification of railway lines is a key provision of the TENT-T development guidelines to increase the efficiency of the EU railway system.
Finally, the investment in Croatia will focus on the construction or rebuilding of four sluices (Šišljavić, Brodarci and two at the Kupa-Korana rivers trench) with the construction and reinforcement of embankments totalling 131.8 km in length. In Croatia, where the Karlovac-Sisak area has been struck by 10 floods between 2014 and 2018, the project will substantially reduce the financial damage caused by floods on the economy, properties and the infrastructure.
More information on EU funded investments is available on the Open Data Platform and on the new Kohesio website.