Latvia's Transport Minister Uldis Augulis (Union of Greens and Farmers) has according to an article in the Baltic Business News (BBN) come to an agreement with his Russian counterpart about a major investment in highway across the route Riga-Moscow.
The intention is to complete the highway by the end of 2018. Already now preparatory work is being made for parts of the route on the Latvian side. This especially applies to the route from Ventspils at the Baltic Sea coast to Riga.
This is part of the Latvian government's ambitions to make Latvia an increasingly important transit country. Much of the country’s revenues come today from this traffic. This is undoubtedly something that could be further developed.
By extension this is one of the longest road complexes in Europe, normally called the E 22. It starts in the west coast of England and stretches through the Netherlands, Germany - via ferry from Sassnitz to Trelleborg - Sweden, Latvia and Russia. E 22 stops in Siberia just north of the border with Kazakhstan. Overall, this is a stretch of way over 5000 kilometers.
Even in other parts of the route there are ongoing discussions about a rapid expansion. In Sweden the standard is still too low. Also Germany plans a faster route to the north of Hamburg and Bremen. It is not unrealistic that these different routes could be concluded around the same time as the Latvian-Russian. They would all rank to serve as an efficient transport route for thousands of companies, with an opportunity to both east and west.
The EU is supposed to be co-sponsoring the route through Latvia. This has been made possible by the rapid fiscal consolidation undertaken during the past two years. Minister of Transport Augulis estimates that 85 percent of the costs will be covered by the EU Cohesion Fund while national funding will take care of the remaining 15 percent.
For the parts of E 22 that passes through Sweden, it should be possible to obtain the status of TEN-T projects and therefore EU funding.
