Estonia is at risk of being deprived of high quality roads in the near future: the existing ones are gradually deteriorating and the state spending money on military needs has no money for new ones. Moreover, no new ones are expected in the foreseeable future, the newspaper Baltnews wrote.
Experts say, citing data from the Estonian National Audit Office, that the country is expected to rapidly reduce funding for roads.
“On top of that, Estonia will also be unable to fulfil its obligation to the European Union to properly build the Tallinn – Pärnu – Ikla and Tallinn – Tartu – Võru – Luhamaa highways by 2030. In a situation where there is not enough money to meet the goals, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications must establish priorities that correspond to the funding opportunities or offer additional options for financing road maintenance,” said National Audit Office auditor Janar Holm.
According to an estimate made by the Estonian Road Administration, the country needs at least €190 million a year for maintaining and developing road networks, but judging by the figures in the financial plan that has been prepared for the next three years, this is out of the question today. In 2025 the funding for the sector will drop to 81 million euros. Inflation in the next few years will ‘eat up’ the actual amount of roadwork several times over, making it impossible for the government to repair the defects that have already occurred. In addition, the Estonian pledges made to the EU to realise the much talked about Tallinn-Pärnu-Ikla and Tallinn-Tartu-Võru-Luhamaa motorways project by 2030 and to perform the whole range of programmed and binding tasks are also in doubt.
“It is noted that at the moment “only 30% of Tallinn – Tartu – Võru – Luhamaa road and 21% of Tallinn – Pärnu – Ikla road meet the requirements of the pan-European TEN-T transport network. In order to meet the requirements, motorways must have separate carriageways for each traffic direction, which are separated from each other by a separating strip, and the crossings with railway and tram tracks as well as pedestrian and bicycle paths must be at different levels.
The National Audit Office is of the opinion that there is not much chance that Tallinn will succeed in solving its road safety problems in the future: there is simply no money for it in the budget. As the author of the article notes, the Estonian authorities are too much concerned about the anti-Russian developments and rapidly increasing military expenses: Tallinn has more than once assiduously rearranged the budget to ensure that the expanding military needs are first of all financed. The payback for such short-sighted policy decisions will be the security and comfort of its own population and an outright failure to meet generally recognised European quality standards”, observers conclude.
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