The MoT already produced an information report on the Rail Baltica project last December. The Minister of Transport accused the Ministry of Finance (MoF) of having stuck the report in the government due to its objections, but the MoF pointed out that if the MoT wanted, it could put the report on the government's table without consulting the MoF.
Ašeradens said that the project costs are now completely different than previously forecast.
"The MoF has fulfilled its commitments to the project cent to cent. We have paid the co-financing and we have not asked anything. Now suddenly the picture is completely different with this 15% co-financing for which there is no money. Now we are talking about completely different figures," explained the Finance Minister.
Ašeradens described the delays and cost increases as "epic" and said it was unclear how the project would be taken forward.
The minister stressed that the project developers in Lithuania and Estonia were also interested in how the construction of the main line in Latvia would proceed.
Meanwhile, Transport Minister Kaspars Briškens (Progressives) said that he had not expected the information report to take five months to be agreed. At the same time, he explained that the report was "extremely complex" and that it was the first time that a report of this size on the Rail Baltica project had been made available to the government.
"There has been some discomfort that it has taken so many months. We are getting signals from our European Union partners that Latvia, like the other Baltic States, is expected to give clear and unambiguous signals that we will move forward politically, otherwise we may receive less funding in the current financial call," Briškens said.
