Summary：Baiba Rubesa, CEO of the railway project Rail Baltica, a rail line to link the Baltic states and the rest of ...

Baiba Rubesa, CEO of the railway project Rail Baltica, a rail line to link the Baltic states and the rest of Europe, resigned on Thursday.

Rubesa's term expires next month. She admitted that the aim of her unexpected resignation is to draw attention to what she sees as the project's shortcomings.

"My profound concern is that the Rail Baltica project is at serious risk of not being properly implemented," Rubesa noted. She said that conflicts of interest have been encapsulated in the roots of the project and there is no agreement on sustainable financing model among the shareholders.

Search for a new CEO started some time ago as the Estonian and Lithuanian shareholders of the project did not agree to prolong Rubesa's term in office.

The project is a joint venture of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian state railway companies. Rubesa, a former vice-president of the Norwegian oil company Statoil, who represents Latvia, has headed the project since 2015.

Rail Baltica is to establish a direct European standard gauge railway connection between the Baltic states and the European railway network. Currently there are only Russian standard gauge railway tracks in the Baltic states.

The 5.8 billion-euro project is expected to facilitate regional integration by means of a railway link from Helsinki to Tallinn, Riga, Kaunas, Warsaw and Berlin.