No consensus on the future of Rail Baltica

There is no consensus among the coalition parties on the future implementation of the Rail Baltica project.

On Monday, the 11th of November, after the cooperation meeting of the parties forming the government, Andris Šuvajevs, the chairman of the Progressives’ faction in the Saeima, said that the Ministry of Transport, under the party’s supervision, had done its homework by preparing an information report on the implementation of Rail Baltica in Latvia. In his opinion, this is a reasonable and realistic solution.

The coalition agreed that the information report would still be coordinated with some ministries and then a political decision could be taken.

Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister Armands Krauze (ZZS) reiterated that the party does not support the report, as the envisaged funding should be 85% from the European Union and 15% from the state. “We believe that the report should contain this breakdown and that the European Union should keep its promises,” Krauze stressed.

ZZS also believes that it is very important that Riga is connected to the main route right from the start, rather than having to think about the connection afterwards. “We take care of Riga first and then we move north,” Krauze added.

Progressives’ Šuvajevs, on the other hand, is positive about the possibility of a political agreement on the Rail Baltica project, while acknowledging that the coalition has different views on the project’s priorities.s

According to him, Progressives also believes that the connection between Lithuania and Estonia should be financed with European funds and should be a priority, and that Riga should be included in the first phase, but the question is about the details. Šuvajevs hopes that the information report could be considered by the government in the near future.

Finance Minister Arvils Ašeradens (JV) said that it is clear that the main thing is to find a solution for the main route, which is the connection with Lithuania and Estonia, and then to gradually address the issue of the connection with the stations planned for Riga.

Ašeradens explained that at the moment they are trying to resolve the international agreements that the country has undertaken, namely, to build the line.

“The sums are impressive, the biggest uncertainty in the project is the still unknown future budget of the Connecting Europe Facility to build the northern route,” said the Finance Minister.

It has already been reported that according to the Rail Baltica project situation study report carried out by the supreme audit institutions of the Baltic States, there is currently no clarity on the operation and management model of the Rail Baltica railway line.

According to the latest information from RB Rail, the cost of the first phase of Rail Baltica in the Baltics could reach 14.3 billion euros, of which 5.5 billion euros for Latvia, but potential savings of up to 400 million euros are possible from optimisation of technical solutions, as well as other savings.

The total cost of the project could reach 23.8 billion euros in the Baltics according to the cost-benefit analysis. A previous cost-benefit analysis in 2017 estimated the total cost of the project at 5.8 billion euro.

The Rail Baltica project will build a European standard gauge railway line from Tallinn to the Lithuanian-Polish border to connect the Baltic States with other European countries by rail. A new 870-kilometre European-standard (1 435 millimetre) railway line with a maximum train speed of 240 kilometres per hour will be built in the Baltic States.