At the beginning of July, there was a question mark hanging over whether the debts accumulated during the construction of Rail Baltica would be paid at all. The first step was to review the contracts and do everything possible to reduce the cost.
"Without such a review, also in terms of costs, I do not think we can move forward with just paying the bills for now," said Prime Minister Evika Siliņa (New Unity) at the time.
However, after three weeks, the coalition agreed that some of the money would still be allocated. Of the €39 million, less than €10 million was given.
"This will cover in principle the work done, as well as the indexation for the work done," explained Ēriks Diļevs, Chairman of the Board of European Railway Lines.
But this is only the first of the fires to be put out, as the money for further work on the stations could not be raised from the Connecting Europe Facility, which has so far been the main source of funding for the project.
"The European Commission's decision was: to show as much progress as possible on the main line, which is what we are actively doing now with the main line builder. We are planning to start construction at Iecava in the near future. As I mentioned, if these activities are not approved in the Riga Central Station Framework Contract, we are looking for parallels, working on alternative "B" - how we can cover the funding from other available structural funds," Diļevs said.
Active project construction in Latvia is currently still underway in only two locations - at the Central Railway Station and Riga Airport. BeReRix, the builder of the Central Station, noted that the works are progressing on time, with around 70% of what has been ordered now completed.
"To a large extent, the pace of construction is really determined by funding. The more you divide this into smaller pieces, the more the time increases, of course.
"[There are] many different solutions to complete this whole central node of Rīga, including the bridge. We probably have to find a way, and we may have to adapt to the situation that we will have in terms of funding," said Guntis Āboltiņš- Āboliņš, CEO of BeReRix.
Given that money is tight and that the European Commission's priority for the project is indeed the main line connecting all three Baltic States, and that this equation does not necessarily include a train passing through the Latvian capital, there is often talk that the existing construction work in Rīga should be frozen for a while. Both the project implementer and the builder of the Central Station pointed out that this would be very expensive and complicated, so it would be better to see the projects through to the end.
