Personal interests hinder Rail Baltica

  • 2011-04-06
  • From wire reports

RIGA - The construction of high-speed railroad Rail Baltica has priority over the high-speed railroad project between Riga and Moscow, which does not have any actual funding, Saeima Budget and Finance Committee Chairman Janis Reirs (Unity) told Latvian State Radio on April 4, reports news agency LETA. The railroad project between Riga and Moscow would hold back the Rail Baltica project, which can potentially receive funding from the European Union, believes Reirs.

He points out that the number of projects submitted for the improvement of the EU transport system exceeds the available funding by four times. “Due to our hesitation, we can lose our position to other projects,” explains Reirs.
Reirs says that he is convinced that the EU will not finance the railroad project between Riga and Moscow.

On April 7, Transport Minister Uldis Augulis (Union of Greens and Farmers) will meet with Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin in Riga, during which the two sides will discuss the Riga-Moscow high-speed rail project, the Transport Ministry said. At the same time, the two sides will also discuss cooperation in improving the Riga-Moscow transport axis. The previous meeting between Augulis and Levitin took place on Dec. 20 of last year in Moscow.

On Dec. 28, 2010, Augulis told the LNT morning show ‘900 Seconds’ that a high-speed railroad between Riga and Moscow has priority over the development of the Rail Baltica project. He emphasized that the building of a high-speed railroad to Moscow would be “economically more justified than building a railroad to Europe.” He said that “This is confirmed by the fact that every year ahead of the New Year, all plane and railroad tickets to Moscow are sold out, and there are no vacancies in Riga hotels. The FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia also contributes to the economic efficiency of this project. Foreign guests, on their way to Russia, would be able to take a plane to Riga, and then travel to Moscow by rail.”

According to Augulis, it is also very important that this project is not a Latvian-Russian, but a European Union-Russian project, which would mean less investment from Latvia. High-ranking Russian officials expressed support for this project during President Valdis Zatlers’ official visit to Moscow.

Therefore, this project has priority over Rail Baltica, where “passenger flows and economic indicators are questionable,” exclaimed Augulis. On Dec. 29, Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis (Unity) told ‘900 Seconds’ that both the railroad project between Riga and Moscow as well as Rail Baltica require economic analysis. Dombrovskis could not say which of these projects would be given priority - the railroad to Moscow or to Europe - however, he pointed out that “ambitious plans to build European-width rails have been cancelled due to high costs.”