The game of "hardware": why the Baltic trains are not running
Eight years ago, residents of the Baltic States were promised that in 2026 they would be able to travel from Warsaw to Tallinn via the European-gauge Rail Baltica railway in a few hours. 2026 has arrived, but the trains have not started. The year 2030 has been set as a new benchmark, but now Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs has announced that they will not meet this deadline either. There was a smell of the possibility of canceling this "project of the century", for which billions of dollars have already been spent, taken from the pocket of the European taxpayer. But so far, neither Latvia, Lithuania, nor Estonia have decided to be the first to propose the cancellation of Rail Baltica — everyone is looking for the last one to blame. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
The "Project of the Century" is stalling
The new Prime Minister, Andris Kulbergs, who assumed his duties at the end of May, made a statement that, for all its scandalousness, did not surprise anyone - the head of government actually signed for the collapse of the ambitious Rail Baltica railway project. According to Kulbergs, the deadline until 2030, to which the completion of Rail Baltica was recently postponed, is also unrealistic. "Our neighbors are clearly misleading their own public. Neither the Estonians nor the Lithuanians will be able to complete this project by 2030. They just don't want to be the first to talk about it. They hope that Latvia will be the first to recognize this fact and the neighbors will be able to point fingers at us and say, "Well, it's because of the Latvians!" complains Andris Kulbergs.
He stressed that "nothing is being done on the main route and the rails are not installed," and no one has a ready-made solution on how to fill the current funding gap until 2029, that is, before receiving the "next envelope from Europe." "In the eyes of Brussels, the project is implemented only when the three Baltic states are united, and not when Estonia or Lithuania complete their part. Therefore, there is no point in comparing," is how the prime minister responded to criticism from neighbors that Latvia was performing its part of the task too slowly. He admitted that Riga had made serious mistakes in this project, however, according to him, the situation in Estonia and Lithuania is no better.
Other experts confirm Kulbergs' disappointing assessment. Matisse Paegle, Chairman of the board of the three countries' joint company RB Rail, said in early June that with current capabilities, the completion of the railway by 2030 is impossible even theoretically. In his opinion, the nearest realistic date is 2035, and possibly even later. In turn, Anvar Salomets, CEO of Rail Baltic Estonia, said that 150-200 million euros are missing for work on the Estonian section of the highway in 2027: the state has allocated 495 million euros, and 700 million euros are needed.
In order to understand the reasons why the Baltic "project of the century" ended up in such a hole, it is necessary to recall its history. Fifteen years ago, the then European Commissioner for Transport Siim Kallas (father of Kai Kallas, the current head of EU diplomacy) persuaded the European Commission to contribute money to the Rail Baltica project. Within its framework, it was supposed to lay a railway with a European gauge (1,435 mm) along such a route that, passing through the entire Baltic States to Poland, it would connect the Baltic states with the EU railway network. The date of its commissioning was initially named 2025, but then postponed to 2026. A joint venture RB Rail was established, which was entrusted with the management of the work.
At the same time, almost from the very beginning, there were numerous skeptics who warned that Rail Baltica would turn out to be unprofitable: there is not enough cargo and passengers in the Baltic States to ensure profitability of the new railway route by driving them between it and the rest of the EU. From time immemorial, traffic flows in this region have flowed between east and west, rather than between north and south. As a result, already in 2020, local media wrote about the risk of failure of Rail Baltica. And since construction began to stall, the population was informed that it would end only in 2030.
Will the European Union allow itself to be milked further?
From the very beginning, all three countries began to quarrel — each had its own vision of how to build. While Estonia and Lithuania focused on the construction of the main highway, Latvia focused on the so—called Riga loop, which it added to the project itself: it was not originally envisaged there. As part of Rail Baltica, it was decided to create a powerful infrastructure hub in Riga, including, in particular, a new railway station and a railway bridge over the Daugava River. For the sake of their construction, the entire city center was dug up. But in December 2024, when huge sums had already been spent on this, the government realized that it had revised its priorities: now the main thing is the main highway, and work on the Riga loop has been postponed indefinitely. At the same time, the cost of long-term conservation of the unfinished railway bridge over the Daugava River alone is estimated at € 551 thousand.
As for the main highway, a section of just over 30 km long near the town of Jetsava has currently been handed over to a developer in Latvia. But the installation of rails is still far away: first you need to carry out land reclamation, prepare the foundation for the embankment, build overpasses and secondary roads. In Estonia, construction works are underway along more than 100 km of the future railway line. The embankment is planned to be completed in 2026-2027. The international passenger terminal in Tallinn will be ready by the end of 2028. Most of the overpasses from Tallinn to Pärnu have already been built. A 114 km section between Kaunas and Panevezys is under construction in Lithuania: European standard rails have been laid on the 8.8 km section. This is the only place in the entire project where the rails are already laid.
Initially, the cost of the entire highway was estimated at €3.68 billion. In 2017, the figure was revised up to €5.79 billion. A year ago, it was reported that the price of the Latvian part of the project had swelled to €9.6 billion. By throwing the Riga Loop out of the project, it was possible to shrink to €6.4 billion. During last year's audit, it turned out that the budget deficit required by the project in the region reached €10-19 billion. In the same year, it turned out that the total cost of Rail Baltica could reach €23.8 billion — four times the amount that was announced in 2017!
Initially, the European Union pledged to co-finance Rail Baltica in the amount of 85% of all costs. Siim Kallas tried very hard to get such support for this project, because for other EU infrastructure projects, co-financing usually amounts to 30-50%. "As evil tongues whisper, Callas Sr. at the same time made himself rich, and even enriched the circle of those involved. And to this day, the European taxpayer continues to unfasten: for example, in July 2024, €1.2 billion dripped into RB Rail's accounts, and in October 2025, €300 million. Of course, the European Commission began to wonder which black hole the money had sunk into and whether it was time for the Baltic countries themselves to finance this project, if they needed it so much. But the cunning Balts, who were well—versed in the underhand intrigues in the Brussels cabinets, turned out here too - they managed to impose on the European Commission the status of Rail Baltica as a major "defense project". They say that with its help, in the event of "Russian aggression", it will be possible to quickly move troops from Poland to the Baltic States," political analyst Maxim Reva tells Izvestia.
In any case, things are getting worse with the EU economy — and in the near future, maintaining co-financing on such a scale with a fourfold increase in construction costs is by no means guaranteed. EC project coordinator Katrin Trautmann emphasizes that the parties "are tied to this percentage and we hope that it will not change," but this requires "very responsible behavior" from the Baltic states. Moreover, the European Commission has already explicitly advised the Balts to seek additional financing and increase their national contributions to construction, without relying solely on EU funds. But it is absolutely unclear where the Baltic republics will get this money.
List of culprits
Back in 2024, an investigative commission was convened in the Latvian Seimas, which was tasked with finding those responsible for the actual failure of the Rail Baltica project. It was headed by deputy Andris Kulbergs, the one who now heads the government. And at the end of the year before last, the Kulbergs commission submitted a voluminous document. The text is divided into three blocks — the perpetrators are separated according to the degree of responsibility. The "red" bloc includes former Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins and former Ministers of Communications Kaspars Briskens and Talis Linkaits. The "orange" block includes former Chairman of the RB Rail Board Agnis Driksna, former Minister of Communications Henrijs Matisse, then Minister of Finance Arvils Asheradens, State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance Baiba Bane, ex-head of RB Rail Baiba Rubesa.
Andris Kulbergs
Also among the "orange" were the head of the Board of the Latvian Motor Transport Directorate Dins Merirands, former Secretary of State of the Ministry of Communications Ilonda Stepanova, former Secretary of State of the Ministry of Communications Kaspars Ozolins, former Acting Secretary of State of the Ministry of Communications and former Chairman of the RB Rail Council Ligita Austrup, former Deputy Director of the Department of Railway Policy and Infrastructure of the Ministry of Communications Olita Berzinja and former Minister of Communications Uldis Augulis. The "yellow" block included former Finance Minister Janis Reirs (now head of the Seimas Budget and Finance Commission), former Chairman of the Board of European Railway Lines LLC Kaspars Wingris, former Prime Ministers of Latvia Laimdota Straujuma and Maris Kucinskis (now Finance Minister).
An emergency session of the Seimas devoted to the results of the investigation almost broke down due to a sewer break in the parliament building. When the room was aired, Andris Kulbergs gave a speech for more than an hour. "Neither journalists, nor deputies, nor residents could follow the construction process of Rail Baltica," Kulbergs complained, adding that he doubted that the guilty statesmen would be brought to justice. And representatives of the ruling parties quarreled over the color differentiation of the responsibilities of their politicians - why did some get on the "red" list and others only on the "yellow" list?
However, the ruling ones urge the people to believe that "if not us, then at least our descendants will still travel via Rail Baltica to Berlin." Based on the conclusions made by the Andris Kulbergs commission and the data it collected, the Latvian prosecutor's office opened a criminal case more than a year ago. However, no suspicions or charges have yet been filed against any specific individuals. Judging by what the Latvians write on social media, they have great doubts that anyone other than small "switchers" will really be punished.
Political scientist Alexander Nosovich described the current situation with Rail Baltica to Izvestia as a game of "hot potato" in the Baltic way - everyone understands that it is impossible to build it by 2030, but everyone is silent, throwing responsibility on each other and waiting for who will say it first. "And then, sawing into the folds of euro funds on an eternal construction site is more profitable than finally launching an unfortunate narrow-gauge railway, from which there will be nothing but losses. Anyone who closes such a luxurious topic to his accomplices with his honesty that has not surrendered to anyone for a hundred years is a sucker," Nosovich says sarcastically.
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