Construction, EU – Baltic States, Lithuania, Railways, Transport

Gytis Mazeika described the European Court of Auditors' report, published on Tuesday, as a good set of recommendations for the Rail Baltica project. 

"I want to reaffirm that Lithuania is ready to implement the project by 2026," he said in a comment.

"In order to achieve this target, Lithuania does not need to carry out any substantial project management reforms," he added. 

According to the official, Lithuania plans to select a contractor for the Rail Baltica section from Kaunas to the Latvian border this year and to start actual construction next year. For that purpose, Lithuania has already submitted an application for 328 million euros in funding. 

In Mazeika's words, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) has precisely identified the essence of the problems. He hopes that the issue of long-term funding for Rail Baltic will be raised in talks on the EU's support for 2021-2027.

"For our part, we, together with our partners, are making every effort to manage the budget of the project, both by controlling costly technical solutions and by increasing the return (on investment)," the vice-minister said. 

"For example, the Kaunas-Vilnius spur significantly increases the socio-economic return of the entire project," he added. 

The ECA said on Tuesday that Rail Baltica's costs had risen by almost 2.4 bn euros and might increase further in the future. The auditors also have doubts about the project's economic sustainability and about whether it would be completed by 2026 as planned. 

Baltic auditors also warned in early 2020 that there was a risk that the European standard-gauge railway project would not be completed within the timeline and the estimated budget.

Lithuanian government officials have also hinted that Rail Baltica may run short of funding as its estimated cost has soared from 5.8 bn to 7.8 bn euros and the EU is unlikely to provide another 2 bn euros.

The European standard 1,435 mm gauge electrified railway for passenger and freight transport is planned to be built from Tallinn to the Lithuanian-Polish border by 2026. The overall length of the railway will be 870 kilometers.