An ambitious railway infrastructure project aims to link the Baltic states with Europe's train network. But financial woes and technical problems are stalling the endeavor.
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00:00It's an impressive, ultra-modern station they built in Riga.
00:05The problem? The new rail Baltica line has to bypass this stop in order to save money.
00:11The entire project, of course, was actually intended to link the three Baltic capitals Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius with Europe,
00:20finally integrating the three countries into the European rail network.
00:25But as much as the Baltic states have long broken with their Soviet past,
00:29the Russian Gorge railway track has been retained. That makes any connection difficult.
00:34Also, planning Rail Baltica was chaotic, leading to unnecessary construction projects.
00:40In November, the EU Commission provided a further 1.5 billion euros.
00:45But that's not enough to finish Rail Baltica, and it's unclear where the remaining funds will come from.
00:541 billion? You're probably supposed to get it from the EU.
01:00I don't know, but this project is madness. Where's the money supposed to come from? From people's wallets?
01:09I don't think Latvia has any money. They are hoping that the money will come from abroad.
01:20You could ask the citizens to pay, a little bit from everyone. And you could ask the European Union.
01:27This Latvian company would like to continue building. It's the general contractor responsible for construction in Latvia.
01:36Our project is experiencing something similar to what's happening with other big projects in Europe,
01:43like this Leon Turin. Initial cost was not estimated enough. Now there is Covid, Ukraine, all the prices went up,
01:51and we are basically in the same shoes as other projects.
01:55So now it's time to see what we can deliver until the end of 2030, with the limited budget that we have.
02:02A Latvian parliamentary inquiry committee is now investigating Rail Baltica.
02:08Three former prime ministers have testified. Because documents were secret,
02:12the scandal surrounding planning errors never got much public interest. Now they're looking for a way out.
02:21And in total, so estimated capex is 5.5 billion. We have now available 1.4 billion euros for Latvia.
02:28And now, together with RB Rail, we are also, let's say, actively looking on these attracting private investments.
02:35In November, the Latvian government decided to build the route as cheaply as possible,
02:40in a straight line from Estonia to Lithuania, bypassing Riga. And there will be only one track, not two.
02:48The grandiose new Riga station and a newly built terminal at the airport will also get a rail connection,
02:56albeit with the old Soviet track gauge.
03:05Transcribed by ESO, translated by —