He noted that he does not want to speculate on the project price now, as it “changed, if not daily, then weekly.”
According to R. Kozlovskis, the Ministry of Transport has hired consultants, one of whose tasks is to prepare a project management model. The minister admitted that after public procurements, previously assumed commitments and the project vision do not correspond to the real situation. Therefore, it is difficult to understand how to reconcile the current situation with the commitments already made or to achieve that certain things be reviewed from a technical point of view in the context of ongoing works.
“I do not see the possibility to finance this project from the budget, so we have to hope for European Union funding. This issue is being discussed with the European Commission. If in September we know how much it will cost, we can expect European Union funding. At this pace, we can move forward,” the minister emphasized.
He agreed with Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs’ words that it is necessary to explore the possibilities of using existing railway connections to reduce costs, as the stage before laying new tracks is the most expensive in the project implementation phase.
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“The funding allocated for the project is far from what it should be. In the next EU funding planning period, it will also be difficult to obtain financing, as the needs of countries are great. However, we cannot give up and say that we will no longer carry it out. It is obvious that we cannot finance this project from the budget, and European funding will not be enough for everything we want to do,” said R. Kozlovskis.
According to the latest estimates, the cost of the first phase of “Rail Baltica” in the Baltic countries may reach 14.3 billion euros, of which 5.5 billion euros in Latvia, but considering indexing, this amount may reach 6 billion euros. Based on cost-benefit analysis, the total project cost is estimated at 23.8 billion euros.
In the previous 2017 cost-benefit analysis, the project cost was 5.8 billion euros.
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