The only way out for Rail Baltica railway project is moving forward and organising management of the project, which includes supervision from the European Commission, said a representative of the European Court of Auditors Mihails Kozlovs at a meeting of the Saeima Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on Wednesday, the 16th of October.
On Wednesday the committee discussed the report of the European Court of Auditors published in 2020, which examined how the EC and the responsible agency manage large infrastructure projects in the European Union (EU), which form the main transport corridors to be launched by 2030.
Kozlovs noted that in this report Rail Baltica was one example of how such “mega” projects are managed in the European sense.
He said that the report was based on the project planning documents, from which it was concluded that there were already risks in the Baltic States before 2020, as well as drew attention to the need for increased attention to this project.
“One of the problems already at that time was the delay of three years of the project, which was a signal that increased attention was needed. We can not say that we are doing worse, because each project is unique,” said Kozlovs, adding that at the same time there is a rise in project costs.
He explained that there was a reserve for cost increases prior to the project materialising. This was an additional EUR 1.2 billion in all the Baltic States. “It wasn’t secret information, it was what we got from the implementers of the project,” Kozlovs stressed.
He also explained that the report from the European Court of Auditors it was concluded that the projected passenger flow numbers are low when compared to other studied projects. One of the suggestions made in the report working on making the project economically justified. “When presenting this report, the main argument was the geopolitical significance of the project, which we did not assess from the audit side. We also stressed the need for the EC to monitor more closely these projects, which are being implemented by several countries,” Kozlovs said.
He said the EC’s powers are relatively limited, but the commission needs to use the tools at its disposal, such as implementation decisions.
The head of the Saeima committee Andris Kulbergs asked what cooperation was with ministries after the publication of this report. To which Kozlovs replied that a request was received from the Saeima to present this report, but no special request was received from the government, including the prime minister, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Transport, to meet with representatives of the European Court of Auditors. For its part, the EC accepted the audit recommendations, committing itself to implement them. The EC commission’s replies to this report have also been published.
Commenting on the monitoring of the project, Kozlovs pointed out that the project management mechanisms depend on the sources of allocated funding. “In the case of the Cohesion Fund, it is shared management, with Latvia and the EC co-responsible. As far as direct management is concerned, when the EC manages a project in cooperation with the implementing organisations in the Member States, it is a different governance mechanism. What happens at the national level is not very coherent and centralized, since each country makes its own decisions about who is responsible for the implementation of this project,” said Kozlovs.
Kulbergs concluded that there is no direct monitoring mechanism on the European side, as each country has to monitor the project.
Kozlovs pointed out as an example that Latvia has clearly separated competences in each ministry. Then there is the question of how high the degree of centralization actually is.
Kulbergs said at the end of the meeting that there are a number of unclear issues on the part of the Commission on the EC side, so the commission is considering contacting Catherine Trautmann, coordinator of the North Sea Baltic TEN-T core network corridor, the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport in the North Sea.
Also read: “Latvia has no money!” Krauze points to Rail Baltica – an expensive dream that will burden our children
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Publish date : 2024-10-16 23:54:00
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