Rail Baltica needs more resources and a longer timeline for completion. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania issued a joint statement on Tuesday, saying that the three countries need €10 billion to complete the standard-gauge railway. They also seem to be letting go of the original 2030 deadline.
The future cross-Baltic railway, key to connecting the region’s railways to the European network, has been plagued by setbacks. For example, the scope of the project has been scaled down from what was originally planned: it will bypass Latvia’s capital city Riga and feature single-track sections, reducing capacity.
It comes as no surprise that the Baltic states are advocating for more funding, since the availability of money has been a major bottleneck. The project’s expected costs have grown by many billions of euros in the past decade. In the next EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), starting in 2028, the countries want to see €10 billion allocated via the Connecting Europe Facility. They also want to maintain an EU co-financing rate of 85%.
The EU has provided around €4.5 billion for Rail Baltica until now.
Defence expenditures hinder Rail Baltica
The three Baltic states highlight Rail Baltica’s importance to support their appeal. It is said to be a “major European investment in security, military mobility, connectivity and competitiveness.” However, they can only unlock the railway’s potential through a continuous cross-border connection to the rest of Europe, for which more money is necessary.
“The change in the regional security environment, its economic impact and the sharp increase in defense investment have placed considerable pressure on the budgets of the Eastern flank, which at the same time carry the responsibility of securing the European Union’s external border towards the aggressor”, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania say.
It seems clear that Rail Baltica, much like other European projects, cannot meet its original construction deadline of 2030. The Baltic states now say that they commit to making the Rail Baltica mainline operational within the framework of the next MFF, which lasts until 2034.
