The Rail Baltica railway project can only be completed with European Union funding, Latvia’s Minister of Transport, Rihards Kozlovskis (New Unity), said in an interview with TV3’s programme 900 sekundes on Tuesday.
“My personal conviction is that we will be able to develop this railway line solely through European funding,” Kozlovskis stated.
He also stressed that all three Baltic states must remain united in implementing the project, as the European Commission views Rail Baltica as a common Baltic initiative rather than three separate national projects.
“We must do everything possible not to pull against one another or point fingers at each other, but unfortunately that is happening,” the transport minister said. He added that the amount of future EU funding allocations will depend on how the countries involved perform during the current planning period.
Kozlovskis further noted that
the Latvian government will decide how exactly the project will proceed only after an international assessment is completed
regarding the actual cost of the Rail Baltica main line and the realistic implementation timetable. Until the audit is finalized, any discussion about the project’s completion date remains largely speculative.
As previously reported by LETA, Estonia’s Auditor General, Janar Holm, stated in early June that Latvia’s inability to complete Rail Baltica by the planned 2030 deadline would inevitably create additional costs for Estonia as well.
Holm argued that, from an objective standpoint, Latvia has no realistic possibility of completing its section of the railway on schedule. He also pointed out that the amount of funding required within a relatively short period would be substantial for Latvia.
It has also been reported that, according to the latest assessment,
the cost of the first phase of Rail Baltica in the Baltic states could reach 14.3 billion euros,
of which approximately 5.5 billion euros would be required in Latvia. Taking inflation and indexation into account, Latvia’s share could increase to as much as 6 billion euros.
Meanwhile, according to the project’s cost-benefit analysis, the total cost of Rail Baltica across the Baltic region could reach 23.8 billion euros.
By comparison, the original 2017 cost-benefit analysis estimated that the entire project would cost approximately 5.8 billion euros.
The Rail Baltica project aims to create a European-standard railway line connecting Tallinn with the Lithuanian-Polish border, thereby linking the Baltic states more closely with the wider European rail network. The project provides for the construction of a new 870-kilometre railway using the European standard gauge of 1,435 millimetres, with trains operating at speeds of up to 240 kilometres per hour.
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