I as Auditor General proposed a joint audit by the Baltic states of the Rail Baltica project in July 2014, 10 years ago now.

First, I stressed that a country like Estonia, located on the periphery of Europe, needs all varieties of connections. We must put a great value on every cable, pipe, rope, or even thread which can physically bind us more closely to other EU nations.

Unfortunately, we already know what state the Estonian stretch of the Via Baltica highway is in.

The Rail Baltic railway is a connection for people and goods, but its security dimension has only grown over time. The ongoing question is how to turn the vision of Rail Baltic into real tracks and trains that operate.

In 2017, again as Auditor General, I identified key questions concerning Rail Baltic:

What is the financial obligation to the state?

How will the project be funded?

What happens if the project ends up being more expensive than planned, does not get completed on time, or if the funding model changes?

These questions still remain relevant today.

In June 2017, the Riigikogu ratified the agreement between the three Baltic states for the development of the Rail Baltica high-speed connection.

The new high-speed twin-track railway was supposed to be completed by 2025 and fully operational by 2026. But we now know that the completion has been postponed to 2030, or even 2031.

Rail Baltica's initial total cost came to €5.79 billion, with Estonia's share being €1.35 billion of that.

Latvia's proportion came to €1.97 billion; Lithuania's was €2.47 billion.

However nowadays the audit offices of all three countries state that the entire project has increased in cost fourfold, to €23.8 billion.

Even were parts of the project to be scaled back to single tracks, with some local stations constructed to a smaller scale, or later on, that would still leave a shortfall of €10.1 billion to find.

The breakdown would mean Estonia would need an additional €1.8 billion, Latvia €4.4 billion more, and Lithuania an extra €3.9 billion, for this revised project.

The primary question now is where the money for building Rail Baltica will derive. How much can the Estonian state budget stand to bear? Or how much will need to be borrowed? In any case, we will need to be repay the loan. Can an agreement be made with the European Commission, so that this loan does not count against our budget rules or hamper Estonia's ability to pursue an independent budget policy?

Thus far, the CEF has covered 85 percent of Rail Baltica's costs, with the Baltic states covering the remaining 15 percent. The continuation of this arrangement remains uncertain, however, and our contribution might therefore significantly rise. It is not yet known how much funding the Rail Baltica project will receive from the EU's next funding period starting in 2028, either.

One of the crucial tasks facing the governments of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania is to engage robustly with the next European Commission, especially with its transport and budget commissioners, to ensure Rail Baltica secures the missing billions of euros from the CEF and the Military Mobility program.

This concerns the connection of the three countries with the rest of Europe, and therefore their security.

I would therefore urge governments to engage in close, daily, pragmatic, and ultimately productive cooperation.

The Baltic states' joint political declarations have always been commendable, but concrete action often falters. It can be assumed that the European Commission also can grow weary of this.

The complex decision-making process by Rail Baltica and the differing interests of the countries can also sometimes serve to create short circuits.

In the case of Estonia, it is essential that Latvia sees both the southern and northern Rail Baltica routes as of equal importance; without that, we will in effect just have a local Tallinn-Ikla rail line.

Two more questions:

In 2017, the Riigikogu ratified a different Rail Baltica agreement than the one we are processing now. So should the Riigikogu refresh the agreement's mandate?

Who will procure the trains that are to run from Tallinn to Poland's western borders? This is not being funded by the European Commission. At present, the transport ministries in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have not yet decided how to procure international trains either.

According to a joint report from the audit offices, this process could take up to eight years. We likely don't have that much time at our disposal, though.

So how do we proceed with Rail Baltica? If abandoning the project is not an option, what are the solutions?

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