It also concludes that the Ministry of Transport (SM) has attempted not to show the government the true cost increase of the Rail Baltica project in 2022. The SM had already estimated a year ago that the project costs had risen to 3.4 billion.
In total, the Commission's interim report summarizes 13 conclusions. These include some that have been reported before – that the National Management Group for the leadership of the project, formed in 2014, consisted of only Transport Ministry officials, and that the Group selected only one version of the project to move toward, dismissing the others.
The Commission plans to make proposals for the future development of the project in its final report.
In other Rail Baltica news, on Monday, November 11, the Administrative District Court rejected a complaint from IC Ictas Insaat Sanayi and Doguş Insaat, an association of Turkish companies that had lost the tender for the construction of the main railway line because of safety risks. The recommendation of the State Security Service showed that the award of the contract to the applicant would pose a risk to national security.
The Court also held that the claim for damages was unfounded.
The construction contract was concluded with a joint venture "E.R.B. Rail Baltica JV", comprising French, Polish and Italian companies.
