The European Union (EU) has reduced its funding for the Latvian section of the major Rail Baltica project by more than €100 million as part of the tenth round of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) funding programme. Originally, €345 million of the total €1.2 billion that Rail Baltica was to receive from the CEF was earmarked for Latvia. The Latvian government was originally supposed to contribute 15% of the funding, i.e. €61 million. The European Commission has now decided to no longer fund certain projects that it previously supported. These include the expropriation of land and construction supervision. The Latvian Ministry of Transport warned that the lack of funding could lead to further financial problems in the future. EU institutions could then cancel previously allocated funds because the Latvian section cannot be completed. The country would lose €167 million and miss the opportunity to apply for funding again.
