"There are many questions about the 'Rail Baltica' project, which is so important for Latvia. Therefore, in June, the commission instructed those responsible for the implementation of the project to come and report on the work done and the decisions made. Answers about the location of the railway line, how much has been built and how much remains to be built are important," said commission chairman Gatis Liepiņš (New Unity party) before the meeting..
"The design and land acquisition process is still ongoing. Where will the trains come from? Experience so far shows that difficulties can arise with this as well. And finally, there is no clarity about the total costs of the project and sources of funding. If, for objective reasons, a decision has not yet been made on something, then we want to see realistically feasible scenarios," said Liepiņš.
Representatives of the Ministries of Transport and Finance, the State Audit Office, the joint-stock company "RB Rail" and SIA "Eiropas Dzelzceļa lijnas" have been invited to participate at the meeting.
In June, the members of the commission decided to carry out parliamentary supervision over the implementation of "Rail Baltica" and requested the Ministry of Transport and the companies responsible for the project to come to the commission in early September to report on what has been done so far and to present scenarios for the implementation of the project.
In the intervening weeks, public exasperation about the spiralling costs and slipping schedules of Rail Baltica has increased and pressure has been mounting on both Transport Minister Kaspars Briškens (Progressives) and the three-party coalition government of Evika Siliņa (New Unity) in general.
The Saeima established a parliamentary investigation commission to evaluate the implementation of the "Rail Baltica" project following a damning report from State Auditors from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.
Rail Baltica is a project to build a European standard 1,435 mm gauge electrified railway for passenger and freight transport to be built from Tallinn to the Lithuanian-Polish border. The overall length of the railway will be 870 kilometers.
According to the latest Rail Baltica cost-benefit analysis, the total cost of the line in the Baltics could reach EUR 23.8 billion, including EUR 15.3 billion for the first phase of the project in the Baltics and EUR 6.4 billion in Latvia. The initial previous cost-benefit analysis in 2017 estimated the total cost of the project at EUR 5.8 billion.
The promotional video below was produced 9 months ago.
