Symbolic groundbreaking ceremony: work on the Baltic Sea tunnel on Fehmarn started

Symbolic groundbreaking
Work on the Baltic Sea tunnel on Fehmarn started

Planned for years and highly controversial – the tunnel that connects Denmark with Germany. The billion-dollar project should be ready in 2029. Now the first symbolic groundbreaking has been done on the German mainland, accompanied by plenty of celebrities.

Man-high mounds of earth point to Fehmarn on the controversial billion dollar project. There is already a lot more going on off the coast of the Baltic Sea island. A number of workboats can be seen on the Fehmarnbelt from land. You have been digging the tunnel for months. Construction of the 18 kilometer long Baltic Sea tunnel from Fehmarn to the Danish island of Lolland is now also starting on land.

Plenty of celebrities came to the symbolic groundbreaking ceremony within sight of the ferry port to Fehmarn. The spades are painted in the Danish and German national colors. “The Fehmarnbelt tunnel is an extremely important construction project for Denmark as well as for Germany, and indeed for all of Europe,” says Denmark’s Transport Minister Benny Engelbrecht. The train connection will be more attractive for travelers between Hamburg and Copenhagen. That is also good for the environment.

The travel time between the two metropolises should be around two and a half hours in future. The Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Transport, Enak Ferlemann, also emphasizes the strengthening of rail transport. “It’s a project that shows that Europe is growing together.”

Cheers for the infrastructure

Schleswig-Holstein’s Transport Minister Bernd Buchholz also speaks of a great day. “This is really a project of the century,” he says. The Fehmarnbelt link is also a huge opportunity for northern Germany. The opponents are a “vocal minority” and he is betting on reconciliation in the future. “Model calculations have shown that, due to the improved transport infrastructure, employment growth of 600 to 1110 jobs can be expected in the Ostholstein district alone.” During the construction phase, the tunnel will “prove to be a tourist attraction and also give the island a new radiance”. The combined road and rail tunnel is expected to be ready in 2029. Denmark bears the construction costs of an estimated 7.1 billion euros for the tunnel, Germany the costs for the local road and rail connection of an estimated 3.5 billion euros.

Construction has been going on in Denmark since summer 2020, initially at the work harbor on Lolland. “The outline of the tunnel portal is easy to see,” says Mikkel Hemmingsen, CEO of the state-owned Danish Sund & Bælt Holding. Work has been underway on the Danish side of excavating the tunnel trench since July 2021 and off the German coast since September.

Compensation area arranged for destroyed reefs

While the Danes have had building rights since 2015, more than 12,000 objections to the project were received in Germany. Since the end of 2020 it has also been possible to build in this country. In November 2020, the Federal Administrative Court dismissed lawsuits against the billion-dollar project. However, the judges told the planners to repair the reefs that were only discovered later in the route area. Compensation areas are planned for reefs destroyed by the construction.

Among others, the nature conservation association Nabu and the action alliance against a fixed Fehmarnbelt link are continuing to take legal action against the project. The Nabu accuses the authorities of not having met legal requirements when balancing the 36 hectares of reef areas.

Ferries still operate between Fehmarn and Denmark. You need about 45 minutes for one passage. In order to prepare Fehmarn and the mainland for significantly more traffic in the future, the so-called hinterland connection in Schleswig-Holstein is to be expanded. While building permits are already in place for the expansion of the main road on Fehmarn, Minister of Transport Buchholz described the planned replacement of the Fehmarnsund Bridge between the island and the mainland as “a somewhat more difficult chapter”. Buchholz, on the other hand, does not expect any major difficulties for the expansion of the railway line on the mainland.

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