In the beginning of April 2022 Mr. Agnis Driksna, CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of the Rail Baltica joint venture RB Rail AS and Mr. Artūrs Caune, Member of the Management Board of the national implementing body in Latvia “Eiropas Dzelzceļa līnijas”, received a delegation of Members of the Italian Parliament representing both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies – Chair of the delegation Senator Isabella Rauti, as well as Mr. Roberto Bagnasco, Mr. Alex Mauro M. Marino, Mr. Federico Mollicone and Mr. Francesco Verducci. The esteemed delegation was accompanied by Ambassador of Italy to Latvia His Excellency Mr. Alessandro Monti.
The visit formed part of the Baltic-Italian interparliamentary friendship group’s visit to Latvia. It was initiated by Senator Rauti, who visited Latvia already in 2018 when the Rail Baltica project was in an early inception, and she was interested to see how since then future high-speed infrastructure megaproject has developed.
Senator Rauti noted remarkable progress achieved on the Rail Baltica project since her last visit and thanked Rail Baltica implementers for their extensive collaboration with Italian partners. Mr. Driksna presented the implementation status of the project and explained that Rail Baltica is truly a European level project, as over 200 Baltic and 50 international partners and contractors from more than 30 countries are contributing. Italian companies currently are already directly participating in over a dozen highly important contracts the total value of which exceeds 500 million euros. Partnerships include – Italferr who is an important partner in the Control-Command and Signalling engineering and works supervision contract; Rizanni de Eccher, who is participating in Riga railway bridge, railway embankment and the Rail Baltica Central Hub’s in Riga design and build project, 3TI Progetti Italia who developed Rail Baltica’s Architectural, landscaping and visual identity guidelines and is also providing detailed technical design review and design expertise services, Sintagma, Rina and others.
Whereas Mr. Caune elaborated on the constructive cooperation that has been established between “Eiropas Dzelzceļa līnijas” and the Italian companies. For example, Rail Baltica Central Hub in Riga is being built by BERERIX, a joint venture between the Belgian construction giant BESIX Group, the national builder RERE Būve and the Italian builder Rizzani de Eccher. Rail Baltica Riga Central Station and infrastructure architecture solutions are developed by the Italian company Crew together with the company Latvijas Arhis Arhitekti; building construction solutions at this stage of the project are in addition provided by the Italian DEAL. Whereas, last December, the association of Latvian (BRD projekts) and Italian companies (Srl Sintagma, founded in Italy) was awarded as the designer of the Rail Baltica’s infrastructure maintenance point in Skulte and Iecava. Complimenting Italian experience in the field and taking into account wide participation in Rail Baltica project, Mr. Caune welcomed Italy to develop designated events or even educational programme to share the knowledge and innovation driven expertise.
Sintagma has also participated in the design of Rail Baltica station and infrastructure of the international railway station at Riga Airport, whereas currently this object is being built by the association of three companies PROSIV (Sintagma (Italy), Prodex (Slovakia) and Vektor T (Latvia).
During the visit, both sides emphasized the importance of Rail Baltica for the European Union in numerous contexts including economic integration and improving the options for both civilian and military mobility, the latter especially considering the latest geopolitical developments. They also shared the view that there is the need to complete Rail Baltica so that the benefits that the new railway will bring can be unleashed as soon as possible.