Rail Baltica strives to stay on track

European coordinators for the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) in charge of the Rail Baltica project in 2013. Photo: European Commission Audiovisual Service

Yet, how different the nearly 800-kilometre railway line will be from the proposed form remains to be seen. One thing is clear, however – many hurdles still remain in order for the Rail Baltica project to go forward. There are abundant deficits in the project’s budget and a lack of land purchasing – not to mention the need to ensure no damage to the cultural heritage sites – for the projected railway path.

“The Rail Baltica project has fallen behind schedule,” Linkaits admitted in an interview with Latvian Radio in late February. “Experts believe that implementation of the project will take about two and a half years longer.”

This means that several individual construction projects that are part of Rail Baltica to start in 2020 will certainly begin much later. “We are working to secure all the necessary financing,” he said. “We are talking to Brussels and the other Baltic countries on rational use of the funds allocated for the project. At the same time, we are also considering additional financing because with the money we have received so far we will not be able to build anything great.”

More costly than expected

According to Linkaits, “something” will definitely be constructed by 2025, but it will certainly not be the entire railroad. Yet if it all goes without any major new impediments, the railway infrastructure should be completed as a double-track railway line for mixed traffic, suitable for minimum 740-metre long freight electrified trains in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The line will be operated through the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) and the capacity shall be ensured for the trans-shipment in existing and new railroad terminals. Passenger trains will be able to reach speeds of 249 km per hour on the line and freight trains will be able to travel up to 120 km per hour. Once the 700 kilometre railway from Lithuania’s Kaunas to Estonia’s Tallinn is completed, a trip from Vilnius to Tallinn, for example, would take four and a half hours, and Kaunas to Riga would take two hours, half the time it currently takes.

When it comes to the project’s cost of 5.8 billion euros, some 2.5 billion are to be invested in Lithuania alone, with 85 per cent of the money expected to come from the EU. The EU’s financing of the project has not officially changed, but as the project has evolved and stumbled, it has become clear that it will cost more than originally estimated. This is where Brussels starts to cringe.

Catherine Trautmann, coordinator for the North Sea-Baltic region of the EU’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), warned in early January that the financing of Rail Baltica could be “changed or influenced” by the next European Parliament which may turn out to be more euro-sceptical (and therefore Rail Baltica-sceptical). “This year will be very important for the project. We cannot say if we’ve stopped or if we could return to this matter later. Baltic states together with Poland and Finland have to work to demonstrate political will to implement the project,” Trautmann said. Budget discussions, according to her, are always difficult, especially considering Brexit. “Britain’s exit from the European Union is something to keep in mind. We know the costs and we will have to cover them,” she emphasised.

For now, Rail Baltica has secured overwhelming support from all EU countries part of the corridor, as well as Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. In a major boost for the project, Finland announced in February that it will support the Rail Baltica. The Finnish government believes that once the railway is completed it will be an important new route from Finland to Central Europe and further west. They also hope it will promote the development of the core network corridor from Helsinki to the north. Helsinki’s decision is believed to alleviate the Baltic states’ discussions with the European Commission on the necessity of more financing in the next EU multi-annual budget.

“There will be another vote interested in defending this project. Finland will be a good partner,” said Krisjanis Karins, Latvia’s new prime minister, on February 4th. Importantly, Finland’s support may also get Poland to be more interested in the project. “Finland’s participation will bring a high level of railway technical expertise into the project and can prompt Poland to join,” Iveta Kancena, the acting head of the communications unit of Latvia’s ministry of transport, told me.

Following its decision on February 1st the Finnish government decided to establish a new state-owned company, Suomen Rata, to develop various railway projects with Rail Baltica listed as one of the company’s areas of work. The company will have five subsidiaries and one of them will aim to become a shareholder in the Rail Baltica joint venture. In a nod to Finland, in late February, the supervisory Board of Rail Baltica appointed Timo Riihimäki as CEO of the management board of the company set up in order to implement the project.

Leadership change

Estonia and especially Lithuania have notably squabbled with Latvia over the suitability of its support of former Rail Baltica CEO, Baiba Rubesa (a Latvian national), which many believed has hindered the project’s progress. Acknowledging the conflict, Rubesa said in early February that for the past two years, Rail Baltica’s management board has been saddled by the consequences of slow decision making which has left an impact on the ability to deliver the project faster and on time. “In fact, the joint venture’s supervisory board has consistently limited the ability to build a proper Rail Baltica company as one effective delivery unit, which has made the implementation process even more challenging,” she said mindful of her forthcoming resignation. In her self-defence, she said she has felt “uncomfortable” as the CEO who did not “please the special interests” of the shareholders and beneficiaries by choosing to follow the high values of corporate governance, transparency and honest project implementation.

Amid apprehensions to the possibility of a European Parliament with a high number of EU-sceptics and what it could entail, the Baltic countries remain largely unfazed. “Today we feel support from the EC and also from the European Parliament,” Rasmus Ruuda, head of the PR department of the Estonian ministry of economic affairs and communications, told me. “I am not clairvoyant and able to predict the future about a new EP, but we know that Rail Baltic will also be, in the future, a competitive and essential project for Europe.”

Domas Jurevicius, his counterpart at Lietuvos Gelezinkeliai (Lithuanian railways) echoed the sentiment by saying the project is being executed “as planned” and that all the foreseen steps will be made regardless of the outcome of the EP elections in late May. However, Kancena, of Latvia’s ministry of transport, was more blunt, warning that there is no indication that an agreement will be reached within the existing European Parliament. “Thus it cannot be excluded that the new European Parliament might have other priorities which might have an impact on the potentially available funding for the Rail Baltic project and its future,” she underscored.

Mollifying these concerns, Trautmann, the TEN-T network corridor coordinator, insists that the European Commission is “deeply involved” with Rail Baltica project’s implementation because it is the only one in Europe’s east with such importance for the region and Europe as a whole: “This is why we should be consistent…The Baltic states should be connected with Europe’s railway network. If we want to be a new hub for freight – from China, from Russia, from other neighbouring countries – this is the way to involve the Baltic states with Poland and Finland in the game,” she emphasised.

Route troubles

What also purports the complexity of the project is the necessity to protect 126 potentially significant cultural and historical sites along the railroad section in Latvia. According to archaeologist Uldis Kalejs, who participated in the assessment of the potential cultural and historic sites where the railroad is to be constructed, some of the sites date back to the Middle Iron Age, others to the16th or 19th centuries. However, it is land purchasing procedures and technical designs that are thought to produce the most difficult problems with land owners, stakeholders, environmentalists and NGOs in each country.

Despite the looming prospect of massive litigations, Arenijus Jackus, director of the Rail Baltica coordination department at Lietuvos Gelezinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways), is confident that all land purchases and technical design work will be finished by 2023, only slightly later than initially planned. “What will effectively remain for the course between 2023 and 2025 will be the actual railway construction,” he told me. According to him, 53 bids have been received for the technical design procurement procedures with 500 kilometres of track, accounting for around 57 per cent of the entire railway line, to be designed during that stage.

In an important milestone for Lithuania, the final approval of a railway spur from Kaunas (the country’s second-largest city) to the capital Vilnius, which has initially been left out, has been delivered to Brussels. Rail Baltica seeks to connect the respective capitals of Latvia and Estonia, Tallinn and Riga. In a tweaked plan, the detailed route alignment from Kaunas to Vilnius must also be approved by the end of 2021. A year later, the land acquisition and technical design of this route, as well as the connection from Kaunas to the Lithuania-Polish border should be completed in Lithuania (from Kaunas to Vilnius and from Kaunas to the Lithuanian-Polish border).

Big plans for 2019

A significant bulk of the Rail Baltica work is planned for this year. According to Ruuda from Estonia, the most important work scheduled for this year includes drawing up and approving a detailed technical design of the project implementation in Estonia (in August 2018 the preliminary design of the project was completed). “The preliminary design is one step further from the spatial plans and identifies the actual object to be built on the route – the railway area width is around 60 meters, around 80 bridges and viaducts were designed, more than 20 ecoducts/green bridges, etc.,“ he said.

Secondly, completing the design of the local Rail Baltica-related facilities is a main task for this year. The most important local facilities include the international passenger terminals in Tallinn, Ülemiste and Pärnu, rolling stock maintenance facilities in Rae county, close to Tallinn and Muuga and Pärnu cargo facilities. Thirdly, they will commence land acquisition.

“2019 marks the actual start of land purchasing where altogether more than 600 land plots (around 800 hectares) will have to be acquired by purchasing or exchange. Land ownership is one of the most important prerequisites for the start of construction,” Ruuda stressed. And finally, the start of the railway construction in Estonia is also expected this year. “As with all big infrastructure projects, the challenges include financing, time frame, environmental impacts, etc. Today we see that these can be managed,” he said.

Asked about the Rail Baltica works this year, Kancena, of Latvia’s ministry of transport, told methat the initial planning stage of the project in Latvia has been successfully finished and officials are currently working on the design of the Latvian stretch of the railway. “As far as Latvia is concerned, the main tasks for 2019 are as follows. Firstly, signing of the Riga Central Railway Junction and Related Infrastructure Design and Construction contract which will be split into three phases; secondly, completing the Rail Baltica RIX Airport Railway Station and related infrastructure; thirdly, to commence the detailed technical designs for the remaining two sections, Vangaži (at the Estonian border) and Misa (on the Lithuanian border),” she noted.

Apart from these prioritised components, studies will continue on energy supply, railway maintenance facilities, control, command and signalling, safety as well as exploring the synergy between 1435mm and 1520mm railway networks in the future. Asked about the challenges ahead, Kancena pointed to a very strict implementation timeline as the prerequisite for the project’s financing. “A serious challenge to accommodate is that bids provided by potential suppliers during the tendering process tend to exceed the allocated budget under CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) financing agreements, therefore it is of crucial importance to look for and find synergies in order to minimise capital expenditure.”

Meanwhile, Lithuania aims to move forward with the technical design of the project this year as well as the purchase of land from private owners for the construction of Rail Baltica’s stretch from Kaunas to Lithuania’s border with Latvia. Some 945 hectares of the total 1,244 hectare area needed for the railway line are on privately-owned land, with the track crossing almost 1,200 private land parcels, which will undoubtedly spark resistance from many landowners. It also passes through 187 hectares of state-owned land. “So far, the biggest challenge is the ongoing railway reconstruction works in the stretch between Kaunas and Palemonas, due to which train traffic has been changed,” Jurevicius told me.

Will passengers be able to dash between Kaunas and Tallinn at never-before-seen speed in the Baltics by 2026? None of the interviewees dared to make such a promise.

Linas Jegelevicius is a Lithuanian journalist and editor in chief of The Baltic Times.

Baltic states, EU transporation, Rail Baltica