Latvia must decide which parts of the international Rail Baltica railway project should be built and which should not, but abandoning the project is not an option, Finance Minister Māris Kučinskis said in an interview with the LETA news agency.
“When it comes to Rail Baltica, it is now somewhat clearer what needs to be done, and that depends on us. No one believes anymore that Rail Baltica can be completed by 2030. We should also forget the idea that we can simply do nothing, because then we would have to answer to both Lithuania and Estonia and repay all the money that has already been spent. We have to move forward,” Kučinskis said.
He added that passing legislation alone is not enough to ensure the project’s implementation. “The law says that the Ministry of Transport must plan and implement the project, while the Ministry of Finance must provide the funding. That is not how it works. Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs has very firmly stated that responsibility for Rail Baltica should be transferred to the Cabinet of Ministers, and that is the right approach. It should have happened long ago. It cannot be the case that one side orders and spends, while another has to pay the bill. It is clear that the construction companies have had a very healthy appetite,” Kučinskis explained.
In his view, the first step is to restructure the Rail Baltica project so that there is complete clarity about what Latvia will build and what it will not.
Kučinskis also believes that changes to the project’s design may be necessary. He added that Rail Baltica should be managed outside individual ministries through a working group led by the Prime Minister.
“As far as I understand, such a group will be established soon. Once there is clarity about what we are building and how we are building it, the financing can be structured. There have already been proposals from major banks, and the issue of public-private partnerships is also being considered. In addition, the next EU structural funds programming period is approaching, during which the Ministry of Transport previously missed an opportunity to secure funding because it failed to submit projects when the money was effectively waiting to be allocated,” Kučinskis said.
Asked whether this means Latvia will most likely build only the railway line itself, Kučinskis replied: “That is your interpretation, and I see it the same way, but nothing has been formally decided yet.”
Asked whether it would be possible to review contracts that have been criticised as excessively expensive, Kučinskis said: “As far as I know, those expensive contracts have already been referred to the law enforcement authorities for assessment. I have no information about the results. That is a matter for the Ministry of Transport.”
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