Baltic countries should not expect large additional EU funds for Rail Baltica in coming years - Dombrovskis

RIGA - The European Union (EU) multiannual budget period from 2021 to 2027 provides for a certain amount of funds for transport projects, so it should not be expected that the Baltic railway project Rail Baltica will be able to attract significantly more funding from the EU, Valdis Dombrovskis (New Unity), European Commissioner for Economy and Productivity, Implementation and Simplification, told LETA in an interview.

"The main problem with the Rail Baltica project is that the costs have increased many times compared to the original ones, but this does not mean that the available funding has increased. As much funding as is foreseen for this project in the multiannual budget for 2021-2027 is also available," Dombrovskis stressed.

He said that the last round of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) call for projects will still be able to get funds, but that will be all in this multiannual budget. Moreover, the remaining funds are not large.

"So Latvia has work to do in several directions. First, however, it needs to look at the multiple increase in the cost of this project, what the causes are and how costs can be reduced. Work is ongoing in this direction. Secondly, other sources of funding need to be assessed," Dombrovskis said.

He recalled that reallocations have already been made from the EU's Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, redirecting this funding to certain Rail Baltica projects. There are also opportunities to mobilize EU Cohesion and Structural Funds.

However, when the next EU multiannual budget after 2027 is being prepared, the Baltic states and the other countries involved in the project must insist that the funding for the completion of Rail Baltica should also take into account the objective cost increases, which are linked, for example, to the sharp jump in inflation a few years ago, Dombrovskis said.

He also noted that Rail Baltica is one of the strategic European projects and there is an understanding of the importance of this project, but this issue needs to be kept on the agenda of Latvia and the countries of the region, as there are other projects and there is a lot of competition for European funding. "Europe understands that it is important to move forward and complete this project, but there are certain things in the Rail Baltica project that can be re-evaluated in terms of cost increases and the scale of the project," Dombrovskis said.