Poland elaborating project documentation for high-speed rail communication with Ukraine

MOSCOW. Oct 10 (Interfax) - The Polish Center of European Projects is drawing up project documentation for setting up high-speed railway communication with Ukraine within the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), Polish government plenipotentiary for Polish-Ukrainian development cooperation Jadwiga Emilewicz said.

"The Center of European Projects is currently working on project documentation from the Polish side in this matter," Ukrainian media quoted her as saying at the Second Ukraine Recovery Forum which was recently organized by the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH) in Warsaw.

The inclusion of rail links from the Polish borders to Lvov, Kiev, Mariupol and Odessa in the TEN-T makes it possible to finance the elaboration of project documentation from European funds, Emilewicz said.

Speaking about the difficulties, she said that the ongoing repair of the rail tracks between Ukraine and Poland is hampered by the need to restrict traffic for several hours a day. "PKP (Polish State Railways) at the request of the Ukrainian side agreed to postpone the repairs so as not to stop traffic," she said.

The European Union is building the TEN-T in order to connect Europe from the West to the East and from the North to the South with a network of highways, railroads, airports, and waterways. The transportation system will be developed in two phases: the "core" network is to be completed by 2030 and the "common" network by 2050.

In July 2023, the European Commission amended the TEN-T indicative maps to include Ukrainian logistics routes. The North Baltic Corridor was extended via Lvov and Kiev to Mariupol, the Baltic-Black Sea-Aegean Corridor was extended via Lvov, Chernovtsy (Romania and Moldova) to Odessa, the Baltic Sea-Adriatic Sea and Rhine-Danube Corridors will run through Lvov.

The inclusion of logistics routes in the TEN-T network makes it possible to remove the current obstacles in conducting logistics operations, attract European investments to retrofit the transport infrastructure and gain access to EU assistance tools for the development of the Ukrainian part of the network, the Ukrainian Reconstruction Ministry said.