Baltic, Construction, EU – Baltic States, Good for Business, Lithuania, Transport

"It was our objective that the public procurement for construction of the route was divided in a way that it would be open to our companies and prevent a system where a powerful French company or Germany's Deutsche Bahn was the constructor of the entire project. This way, our businesses wouldn't be able to take part and cover the entire project with their staff and equipment numbers," Sinkevicius says.

The procurement scheme will be worked out in line with the main principles of Rail Baltica tenders finalized in Brussels on Wednesday. The procurement will be divided in three categories, i.e., procurement of a single joint company, consolidated procurement announced by the joint enterprise and procurement organized by individual Baltic states but with close supervision from the joint enterprise.

Baiba Rubesa, board chairman of the joint company RB Rail, has said that the tenders should only be conducted via the joint enterprise, stating on a few occasions that it was the only way of ensuring their transparency. However, Lithuania's Sinkevicius says the accusations are ungrounded.

"The theory of us forecasting some sort of fraud and that's why we are very eager to organize the public procurement – this is not the case. There are supervisory institutions, which keep a close eye on things," said the minister.

Among other things, the minister stated that the board issue, which was subject to disputes for a long time, is no longer a matter of principle. On Wednesday, Lithuania also agreed to the model of the joint company's board it earlier opposed.

Dainius Budrys, chairman of the joint enterprise's supervisory board, told on Wednesday that Lithuania intended to announced ta tender for installation of signalling system between the Polish border and Kaunas estimated at the 85 mln euros and the design of the railway stretch between Kaunas and the Latvian border estimated at 14.5 mln euros this financial perspective.

The European Union is expected to provide up to 85 % of the total costs of the project estimated at around 4 bln to 5 bln euros. The European Commission approved 106 mln euros for Rail Baltica works in Lithuania last year and another 191 mln euros this year.