Madrid to present tunnel project to EU transports commissioner

The Spanish transportation minister, announced Tuesday that he will present on Jan 14th the Gibraltar Strait tunnel project to the European Energy and transport Commissioner, Loyola de Palacio.

Francisco Alvarez Cascos said the initiative was undertaken because of the importance the project represents for trans-European transportation networks. The minister affirmed that the fixed connection is " a supranational project that goes beyond a bilateral agreement." It concerns indeed a structure that "links Morocco to Spain, and the two continents at the same time," he explained.

The construction of this tunnel through the Gibraltar Strait will cost more than three billion EUROS, revealed on Monday, Alvarez Cascos, adding that this fixed link will be "in the 21st century what the Suez Canal was in the 19th century and what the Panama Canal was in the 2Oth century."

The longtime planned construction of this tunnel could begin within five years after Spain and Morocco agreed to a major engineering study of the Strait of Gibraltar. The tunnel could be dug between Punta Paloma in southern Spain and Punta Malabata near Tangier in Morocco. It would run for 38.5 kilometers and would pass beneath the strait for 27 kilometers at a depth of about 300 metres.