Top British media outlets shed light on underwater tunnel project to link Morocco to Spain

Two prestigious British newspapers, The Telegraph and The Independent, have shown interest in an underwater link project between Morocco and Spain, saying the dream could become a reality by 2030 thanks to the World Cup to be jointly organized by the two countries with Portugal.

This week the Moroccan National Company for Strait Studies (SNED) said that work was underway to explore the financing and strategic elements of the project, said Daily Telegraph in a story published lately.

In March, the Moroccan minister of equipment, Nizar Baraka, met the Spanish transport minister, Oscar Puente, to discuss the matter.

The underwater section of the tunnel would span 28km at a maximum depth of 475m, connecting Punta Paloma, west of Tarifa, with Malabata in northern Morocco, just east of Tangier. It is unknown how much the construction of two tunnels (plus a third service tunnel) would cost, although some estimates put the project at €8 billion.

The Spanish Society for Fixed Communication Studies across the Strait of Gibraltar (SECEGSA) has said the tunnel, to link the railway networks of Spain and Morocco, could carry 12.8 million passengers per year.

It would also be an important trade crossing, with the potential to transport 13 million tons of cargo between Africa and Europe. The project would reduce travel times between Madrid and Casablanca to just 5.5 hours. Currently, flights take around two hours, and driving – including a ferry crossing – eats up about 12 hours.

According to the Telegraph, the idea of a Strait of Gibraltar tunnel was first proposed by the Spanish government in 1930. However, the project was put on hold due to technical difficulties met by engineers at the time.

Plans for the tunnel resurfaced in 1979, when the governments of Spain and Morocco appointed a joint committee to study the feasibility of the project, although the tunnel never came to fruition. The project has recently gained fresh traction after Morocco launched Al Boraq high-speed railway line connecting Casablanca with Tangier, the first of its kind in Africa.

The Gibraltar fixed link project has also captured the attention of The Independent daily, saying an underwater tunnel could link Europe’s high-speed rail network to North Africa by 2030 if the undertaking goes ahead.

The tunnel would introduce a high-speed train service by connecting Spain’s existing rail lines to Morocco’s 300mph Al Boraq route that opened in 2018. A route departing Madrid, Spain, for Casablanca, Morocco, would travel via Algeciras and Tangier, going under the Strait of Gibraltar.

While an average flight from Madrid to Casablanca clocks in at one hour and 50 minutes, the full train journey would reportedly take travelers five hours and 30 minutes to switch continents.

According to the Independent, strategic planning is underway and developers hope the tunnel could open in just six years, in time for the three countries – Spain, Portugal and Morocco – to host the 2030 FIFA World Cup.

The Spanish government confirmed €‎2.3 million EU feasibility funding to study the ‘Europe-Africa Gibraltar strait fixed link’ just last June.

At the time, Spain’s transport minister, Raquel Sanchez, said: “We are going to give impetus to the studies of a project of maximum geostrategic importance for our countries and for relations between Europe and Africa,

“We are beginning a new stage in the revival of the fixed link project across the Strait of Gibraltar, which we launched in 1981, hand in hand.”