Barents Link Forum (Interreg)

The extended Arkhangelsk gateway, via Sweden all the way to Narvik in Norway, is marketed under the Barents Link name. Through the strong economic growth of the Northwest Russia region and in accordance with the energy resource utilisation plans of the Barents Sea area by the government of the Russian Federation, Barents Link has become a viable option for transport between the EU and Northwest Russia. The increase in rail transport in Northwest Russia has led to congestion in the ports, St. Petersburg in particular. A new connection would ease the congested rail transport situation in Northwest Russia. The project was to, for example, prioritise the development needs at the Vartius–Lytta border crossing point; conduct a feasibility study; build a BLF centre in Kostomuksha; promote the opening of the Lietmajärvi–Kostkoma track to commercial traffic; and initiate marketing of the Barents Link gateway to potential customers in Russia and Europe. The development of the connection was seen as serving the economic growth of the whole of Northern Finland. The project was planned to form a cooperation forum where the entities along the Barents Link transport gateway could together plan the construction of the future connection and, in particular, the expansion of rail transport.

Cooperative teams were established as planned, and they met several times during the project. A Barents Link event was organised in Kajaani, which had participants from numerous entities from Russia, Finland, Sweden and Norway. A memorandum was approved at the forum, which specified shared goals and listed concrete objectives. The project was successful in creating a fixed cooperation network with the transport and regional authorities of Northwest Russia; working together with these entities, initiatives for agreement negotiations between nations (e.g. starting container transport, perishable goods, and setting tariffs) can be created and the transport development opportunities of the Vartius international border crossing point can be presented to officials in Finland, Russia and the EU. The goals to develop transport mostly require agreements between nations (Finland–Russia–EU). Therefore, renewing border operations is limited at the local level. An extensive transport study, ‘Barents Link Corridor – a multimodal collector to Transnational Northern Axis of EU 2007’, has been completed with the support of the project; it contains updates on the most significant investment and development needs by transport mode. A preliminary list was received from the Kostomuksha customs unit regarding the investment needs at the Lytta –Kivijärvi stations. In addition, an extensive cross-sectional transport study of Northwest Russia was put together by Russian transport specialists and published (Northern Transport Corridor – Severnyi transportnyi koridor) in Russian. Implementation of the goals is continued in the Tacis part of the project during 2008–2009. It is hoped that the project will be continued in order to get also the Norwegian and Swedish companies and regional authorities to participate actively in the development work.