On the occasion of the conference of the ministers responsible for planning and development of the Baltic Sea countries in Wismar on 2 June 2023 (VASAB) and a preceding expert conference on 1 June, the former Minister of Transport of the Republic of Latvia, Mr Talis Linkaits, was in Wismar. At the invitation of Wismar Business School, he gave a lecture on 31 May 2023 to students from various degree programmes on the topic of
"The journey to competitive participation in the EU single market: the story of the Latvian transport industry".
In his presentation, he described the difficulties of developing an independent and competitive transport sector after regaining state independence. Examples include technical difficulties due to the different track widths of railways, but also the successes, for example with Baltic Air. He described the development of an efficient European rail transport network as one of the central tasks of the future, whereby it must be important that the various transport systems do not compete with each other, but complement each other in a meaningful way.