The European Union and Ukraine have agreed on updated indicative road and railway maps of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) for Ukraine and Moldova, Ukraine's Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development has reported.

"On December 22, the High-Level Understanding between the European Union and Ukraine was signed. It confirms the acceptability of updated indicative road and railway maps of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) for both parties – Ukraine and the European Union. They will be finally approved by the EU in April 2024 along with updating the relevant Regulations," the ministry said in a Facebook post on Friday.

The update of the TEN-T indicative maps is aimed at including new routes leading to the border with Poland and Moldova, identified as priorities for the development of railway communication with the EU using the infrastructure of the European standard 1435 mm gauge, in particular the section Lviv - Rava Ruska - Lublin.

In addition, it concerns the following routes: Odesa - Berezyne - Basarabeasca (to Chisinau and Reni, Moldova), Zhytomyr - Vinnytsia - Yampil (to Rîşcani, Moldova), Chop - Uzhgorod - Sambir - Lviv, Krasnohrad - Poltava, Krasnohrad - Kharkiv, and Krasnohrad - Dnipro.

"This decision is a strategic step in the process of Ukraine's integration into the EU and will contribute to the implementation of the Solidarity Lanes initiative for the export of Ukrainian agricultural products and the delivery of humanitarian aid to Ukraine," Deputy Prime Minister for Reconstruction, Minister of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov said.

According to the updated TEN-T indicative maps, routes leading to the borders of Russia and Belarus will be downgraded.

Earlier the European Commission excluded Russian and Belarusian routes from the TEN-T network, and also downgraded the status of routes in the EU at the junctions with these countries.

The Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development said that the joining of new Ukrainian routes to TEN-T will make it possible to attract EU funding, in particular grants from the European Commission under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) instrument for the implementation of infrastructure projects in Ukraine.