From 2023 to date, the Madrid-Casablanca rail link-up project is ongoing with studies and renewed committment by leaders of Spain and Morroco. The prospect of a rail.link between both nations and by extension, Africa and Europ3 is significant. The European Union should actually be interested in this project under its Gateway agenda.
The revival of the inter- link project is a direct challenge to African leaders with respect to the African continental high speed railway project. Regional action should ordinarily propel renewed focus to ensure connectivity of landlocked African capitals. The slow pace of implementation especially of the African rail.agenda is a source of worries to many stakeholders.The proactive action of both the Spanish government and the Morrocan leadership may change the thinking and approach within the African Union and the New Partnership for African Development Agency(NEPAD/AUDA).
Europe to Africa high speed rail tunnel gets financial boost
As at November 2023, the Spanish government has pledged £2M (€2.3M) towards a design study for revived plans to connect Europe to Morocco’s high speed rail network with a tunnel across the Strait of Gibraltar.
Proposals for the “Europe-Africa Gibraltar Strait fixed link” were mothballed in 2009 but revived in April of this year when the joint Spanish-Moroccan commission for the undersea tunnel project met for the first time in 14 years.
The funding will be provided through the European Union’s Recovery, Transformation & Resilience Plan and will be allocated to the Spanish Society of Studies for a Fixed Link through the Strait of Gibraltar. This group currently holds the responsibility for exploring the numerous possibilities for the project.
Studies on connecting the two continents date back to the 1930s. When Spain first proposed the tunnel in the 1930s, it hired engineers to study the geology of the crossing. A major problem arose due to the discovery that the rock under the Strait was extremely hard making tunnelling impossible with the technology of the time. This called for a proposal of a pre-fabricated concrete tunnel to be attached to the floor of the strait with cables.
However, the project was deemed to be officially initiated in 1979 when King Juan Carlos I of Spain and King Hassan I of Morocco signed an agreement to develop the project in an attempt to boost relations between Europe and Africa.
Inauguration of Morocco’s first high-speed rail line in 2018 renewed faith in the project to connect it with Spain’s own extensive high-speed rail network. Tangier serves as the starting point of the high-speed rail line in Morocco which serves both Rabat and Casablanca.
Spain’s network covers the southern coast including a stop in Malaga which is connected to Algeciras, via upgraded line capable of travelling 220km/h, where a ferry service currently operates between Tangiers. Ferry services also operate between Tarifa in Spain and Tangiers.
Speaking at the joint committee meeting, Spain’s minister of transport, mobility and urban agenda Raquel Sanchez said: “It has an important political significance that, after 14 years, since Tangiers in October 2009, we give a boost to the studies of a project of the utmost geostrategic relevance for our countries and for the relations between Europe and Africa”.
Both parties also agreed to develop a general strategy and a work plan for the next three years for the project at this meeting.
The Strait of Gibraltar tunnel megaproject is one of the few engineering projects in the world with the capacity to change the geopolitical order and relations between Europe and Africa. Moroccan state media SNRTNews reported that studies have indicated the possibility of building a railway linking Madrid and Casablanca in just five and a half hours. This will mean a 180-degree turn in the commercial relations between Spain and Morocco, which are presented as the gateway from Europe to Africa (Spain) and the gateway from Africa to Europe.
According to studies carried out in this field, ‘the current high-speed railway line in both Morocco and Spain is expected to significantly reduce travel time compared to regular trains’, says the report. The report also cites data from the National Company for the Study of the Strait of Gibraltar, which indicates that the project could provide an adequate rail connection between the two cities.
The tunnel of some 38 kilometres that would link Tangier and Tarifa is still only a concept four decades after the idea of linking the two continents was first mooted. The tunnel would reach a maximum depth of 475 metres with a length of 27 kilometres when it opens in 2030. The project to build a tunnel under the Strait of Gibraltar was revived, as announced in February by the Spanish media La Razón. Raquel Sánchez, Spain’s transport minister, is also quoted in the report as saying that both nations will push ahead with studies of projects planned since 1979.
According to Sánchez, the project is of strategic importance for Europe, Africa and both Spain and Morocco. When Spain decided to back Morocco’s Autonomy Plan for Western Sahara, diplomatic relations between the two countries improved and revived plans to take the project to a more advanced stage, and should continue to foster their connections on all fronts.
The Madrid-Casablanca link-up project was mentioned as they celebrated FIFA’s announcement that Spain, Morocco and Portugal will host the 2030 World Cup. The international competition is expected to attract millions of spectators from around the world. Media reports said the research would determine the “appropriate technology” for tunnelling, citing company data that was only available for the Strait studies.
Europe to Africa high speed rail tunnel gets financial boost
As at November 2023, the Spanish government has pledged £2M (€2.3M) towards a design study for revived plans to connect Europe to Morocco’s high speed rail network with a tunnel across the Strait of Gibraltar.
Proposals for the “Europe-Africa Gibraltar Strait fixed link” were mothballed in 2009 but revived in April of this year when the joint Spanish-Moroccan commission for the undersea tunnel project met for the first time in 14 years.
The funding will be provided through the European Union’s Recovery, Transformation & Resilience Plan and will be allocated to the Spanish Society of Studies for a Fixed Link through the Strait of Gibraltar. This group currently holds the responsibility for exploring the numerous possibilities for the project.
Studies on connecting the two continents date back to the 1930s. When Spain first proposed the tunnel in the 1930s, it hired engineers to study the geology of the crossing. A major problem arose due to the discovery that the rock under the Strait was extremely hard making tunnelling impossible with the technology of the time. This called for a proposal of a pre-fabricated concrete tunnel to be attached to the floor of the strait with cables.
However, the project was deemed to be officially initiated in 1979 when King Juan Carlos I of Spain and King Hassan I of Morocco signed an agreement to develop the project in an attempt to boost relations between Europe and Africa.
Inauguration of Morocco’s first high-speed rail line in 2018 renewed faith in the project to connect it with Spain’s own extensive high-speed rail network. Tangier serves as the starting point of the high-speed rail line in Morocco which serves both Rabat and Casablanca.
Spain’s network covers the southern coast including a stop in Malaga which is connected to Algeciras, via upgraded line capable of travelling 220km/h, where a ferry service currently operates between Tangiers. Ferry services also operate between Tarifa in Spain and Tangiers.
Speaking at the joint committee meeting, Spain’s minister of transport, mobility and urban agenda Raquel Sanchez said: “It has an important political significance that, after 14 years, since Tangiers in October 2009, we give a boost to the studies of a project of the utmost geostrategic relevance for our countries and for the relations between Europe and Africa”.
The AFP did an overview which we republished below.
Morocco-Spain Tunnel Idea Back
In limbo for years, plans for a tunnel linking Spain and Morocco have been officially revived by Madrid and Rabat although the dream of an underwater rail link faces multiple obstacles.
Seen as one of the most ambitious undersea projects in the world, the tunnel plan featured a double-rail track and additional service line stretching 38.5 kilometers, of which 28 kilometers would run under the Mediterranean at a maximum depth of 475 meters.
Working through a joint committee, two state-run companies, Spain’s SECEGSA and Sned of Morocco began feasibility studies which would, over the next four decades, involve multiple tests and preliminary drilling work.
After considering various scenarios, they agreed on a model inspired by the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France, that would run from Punta Paloma near Tarifa in southern Spain to Malabata near Tangiers in Morocco.
In linking the two countries’ rail networks, the tunnel would “boost the European and African economies”, said Claudio Olalla, an engineer and professor emeritus at Madrid’s Polytechnic University who has been working on the project for some time.
According to SECEGSA, the tunnel would, in the medium term, enable the annual passage of more than 13 million tons of goods and 12.8 million passengers, which could “significantly contribute” to the economic development of the western Mediterranean.
Spain is already the main trading partner of Morocco, which exports a large part of its own production – predominantly agricultural – to the European Union.
But the Gibraltar Strait, through which 100,000 ships transit every year, is already heavily congested slowing the transit of goods between the two countries.
-Why revive plans now?-
The project stalled in recent years due to budget cuts in Spain following the 2008 financial crisis and a succession of diplomatic spats with Morocco.
But relations have improved since March 2022 when Madrid ended a nearly year-long diplomatic crisis by reversing decades of neutrality on the Western Sahara conflict to back Morocco’s position.
That has seen the two nations reset their strategic partnership, with Madrid unblocking part of its 2023 budget to fund a new study that will constitute “the definitive step needed to start construction”.
The two sides discussed the vast project during a summit in Rabat on February 2.
“We are going to give a new impetus to studies into the Gibraltar Strait link project” said Transport Minister Raquel Sanchez in a statement announcing that the joint committee grouping SECEGSA and Sned would resume talks.
-What obstacles stand in the way?-
The main problem is technical: the Strait of Gibraltar is located in a fault zone between the Eurasian and African tectonic plates with a complex geological makeup that includes an unstable clay section that is constantly pounded by intense underwater currents.
“The soil quality is pretty poor. Nothing like the limestone they have underneath the Channel,” Olalla told AFP, referring to the body of water separating Britain from France.
“The technical conditions are very challenging, far beyond those of any other tunnel in the world,” he said.
And that is likely to weigh heavily on the cost, which has never been clearly laid out.
“Technically, these obstacles are not insurmountable but their economic viability is a matter of concern,” he said.
There are also political issues given the frequent instability of ties between Madrid and Rabat as well as the potential reluctance of other European countries that fear a surge in migration — which the tunnel’s promoters have insisted won’t happen.
All of which makes the project unlikely in the short-to-medium term, said Olalla.
“I think the project will go ahead one day, but it won’t happen any time soon.”
