The railway project Rail Baltica “went off the rails” in the years 2013 – 2014 when developing an alternative solution that is not mentioned anywhere in the project’s most important documents, according to what the chairman of the Saeima’s Parliamentary Inquiry Commission into Rail Baltica Andris Kulbergs told LTV programme Rīta panorāma.
The commission concluded that the Saeima did not grant permission for the project in its current scope.
The commission has so far had six meetings. Kulbergs said one of the main objectives of this commission is identifying the moment when “this train fundamentally went off the rails”.
He said right now the general picture is that this was around 2013 – 2014. Kulbergs also mentioned that the most important agreements related to the project, such as the shareholders agreement signed in 2014, mentions a study performed in Baltic States in 2011. This and many other documents were ratified by the Saeima in 2017, the politician said.
“It was a simplified main line that will connect Baltic States and their capital cities using Rail Baltica railway line. We see that Riga is connected as one branch to Riga Railway Station and back. So, a simplified project, on the basis of which a cost estimate of EUR 1.2 billion was laid,” he explained.
Despite this, there were changes made, and in 2016 the government was presented with a completely different proposal, the commission concluded. It was composed in 2013 after an alternative assessment that was outsourced for EUR 4 million. According to Kulbergs, this is where the so-called “Riga loop” is formed. Riga International Airport and other important locations are connected. Ongoing construction is now observed in the capital city.
“This expensive, luxury idea of the Riga hub was born, which, of course, is beautiful, convenient and comfortable, but the question is whether it is originally confirmed. No, it is not confirmed, as we see from the documents. The parliament has not given a mandate for such a solution,” he said, adding that such a document came to the government without a financial assessment or an assessment of the impact of such an option.
Kulberg asked who took this “loop” to the cabinet and why Latvia started off with the construction of these points. He acknowledged that the individuals involved had been identified. The prosecutor’s office is attached, which will have to evaluate these decisions and actions.
According to him, although the Ministry of Finance and the Minister of Finance say that the ministry has not been informed, a look at declassified documents shows that in 2013 and 2016, “testimonies” went to the Cabinet of Ministers. There were indications to think about the issue of financing, about the fact that by choosing to build a “loop”, we could end up with the fact that the cost of the project go up significantly.
“These changes, or whims, or luxury things that every politician, official or specialist has put on the table, have not been evaluated – there is no assessment of what that will mean for construction costs and usage costs,” the politician said, adding that a kind of snowball effect has begun. Notably, the project has expanded with a lot of options, just like a car configured, complete with window lifts, air conditioning, navigation and other things, even though the financier had said it would finance the basic car, not those options.
The head of the commission also expressed surprise that the project also involved in key positions people without education in this field, without previous experience, without any experience in project management.
Nor has the project been compared with other similar examples in Poland and Spain.
“No one looked at the project in a comprehensive manner,” said Kulbergs.
On the 13th of June 2024 the Saeima decided to compose a special commission to investigate the mistakes made in the Rail Baltica project so far. The commission will be active for six months.
The purpose of the commission’s activities is to identify the mistakes made in the implementation of the project, at the same time ensuring that it becomes a priority issue for the government, “so that decisions are taken transparently and in a timely manner, as well as taking into account the interests of the State and society, the impact on the Latvian economy and state budget”.