OREANDA-NEWS. September 24, 2014. The Estonian leg of the Rail Baltic high-speed link is estimated to cost around 1.14 billion euros, and the EU's part of the bill could only be 56 percent, says Ministry of Economic Affairs adviser Anti Moppel.

The EU's part will come from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) fund, which will cover 85 percent of the cost of any project. Moppel said the devil is in the details as not the entire Rail Baltic project qualifies for CEF.

He told ERR radio that only two-thirds of the total cost is viable for CEF funding, meaning EU will only cover 56 percent of the cost.

Over 500 million euros will have to be found by the Estonian government, with various long-term international loans one answer, Moppel said.

He said Rail Baltic has not received a green light from CEF yet, and the three Baltic nations must submit a very good project first.