Would the Crisis Between Morocco and Spain Spoil the “Gibraltar Tunnel” Project?

After being forgotten for years, the "African Tunnel" project, that was supposed to connect Morocco with Spain through the British Strait of Gibraltar, has returned to the fore again.

With the beginning of the diplomatic crisis in Rabat and Madrid, triggered in May 2021 due to the conflict about the Morrocan Sahara, the two governments discussed the "project" again.

Despite the "Deep differences" between them, it is expected that one day the project will link the Kingdom to the Iberian Peninsula, and Spain to Africa, either through a Spanish-Moroccan-British partnership or a bilateral partnership between Rabat and London.

Big Challenges

On April 21, 2021, the Moroccan Minister of Equipment and Transport, Abdelkader Amara, held a "Video conference" meeting with his Spanish counterpart, Jose Luis Abalos, in which they discussed reactivating the connecting project across the Strait of Gibraltar.

The last meeting on this matter was held in Tangiers (north) in 2009.

Minister Amara stressed that "the project will not only connect two countries, but also two continents, noting that Morocco will serve as a link between Europe and Africa."

The idea, that was described by the French magazine "Jeune Afrique", as "almost ideal" arose in the minds of French and then Spanish engineers in the second half of the 19th century. Then, the colonial empires, especially France and Spain, that colonized Morocco, competed for plans to transfer African wealth to Europe.

In 1979, the former King of Spain Juan Carlos, 4 years after his enthronement on the throne, began discussions with the late King Hassan II of Morocco about the possibility of linking their two countries, and Hassan II was then "aspiring to become a distinguished partner of the European Union," according to "Jeune Afrique" ".

A year later, the "Spanish Society for the Study of Communication across the Strait of Gibraltar" and its Moroccan twin, the "National Society for the Study of the Strait of Gibraltar", emerged. Then, four decades of fieldwork and forward-looking studies began.

The two countries debated whether a bridge or tunnel would connect them, but in the late 1990s the idea of ​​a suspension bridge had been ruled out due to its astronomical cost.

The tunnel project - which is 50 km long - faced the constraints of the distance separating the two continents at the level of the strait, which is only 14 km, but the water along it is very deep, so it was decided to transfer the construction project to the west for a distance of 38.7 km, all at a depth of 300 meters maximum, provided that The tunnel is only 75 meters below sea level.

In 2003, after many studies, drilling and testing, the Spanish Society chose to construct a railway tunnel, and entrusted the project to the distinguished Swiss engineer, Giovanni Lombardi, famous for designing the "Gottard Base" railway tunnel under the Swiss Alps, the longest in the world (57 kilometers).

 

But the railway tunnel project between the two kingdoms gradually faltered, due to many considerations, most notably the economic, diplomatic and political uncertainty, and the economic crisis of 2008 led to a significant decline in Spanish public budgets, with a strong impact on the project. Thus, the joint meetings between the two countries’ committees, which were originally scheduled every 6 months, stopped.

The project lacks enthusiasm, as the head of the socialist government, Jose Luis Zapatero, called in 2007, Europe, to support this project, which will change the relationship between Europe and Africa. Because the cost is estimated between 6 billion euros and 18 billion euros, several reports questioned the ability of the European Union to take care of it.

Following Zapatero's statement, the US diplomat wrote to Madrid, reporting that many EU member states "question the relevance of such project and are concerned about its impact on the flow of irregular migrants and drug smuggling".

Massive Potential

In Morocco, press reports considered the project "as ambitious as it is imaginative", but the effect of Hassan II's famous sentence in 1986, "is still valid" by saying: "Morocco is a tree whose roots are in Africa and breathes with its leaves in Europe."

On the Spanish side, at the end of 2020, the new director of the Spanish Studies Company, Jose Luis Guberna Karide, held a meeting on the study of the continental tunnel project between Spain and Morocco.

In early 2021, the company's team went to "San Roque", a town near the island of Gibraltar, and estimated that the project could be implemented in the 2030s or 2040s, as the company spoke of railroad studies, which are currently being studied.

In 2020, Morocco signed an association agreement with the United Kingdom after Britain's exit from the European Union, which provided the possibility of linking Morocco with Gibraltar, especially since the peninsula under British sovereignty would remain in the "Schengen area", despite Britain's exit from the European Union.

In its report, "Jeune Afrique" considered that the border city of Tangiers with Spain is "the most globalized in the Kingdom", as it is witnessing a new boom with the Tangier-Med port, the high-speed train line (Tangier-Casablanca), and the establishment of the Renault car factory. This is enough to revive interest in the tunnel project.

The railway line between Spain and Morocco will allow the transit of more than 13 million tons of goods and 12 million passengers annually by 2050, and Madrid remains the first trading partner of Rabat, with a global exchange volume of 142 billion dirhams.

The Spanish journalist, who opposes Morocco, asserted in the newspaper "Al Mundo", Ignacio Cimbrero, that "the project will be achieved, but the situation at the present time is not appropriate."

On May 18, 2021, Spain summoned Moroccan Ambassador Karima Benyaich to tell her of the "Dissatisfaction" about the deliberate act by Rabat to open the borders allowing the flow of irregular immigrants to Spain, when the Spaniards agreed to treat the leader of the "Polisario" separatist front, Ibrahim Ghali, who was infected with Corona.

Rabat wants Madrid to recognize its sovereignty over the territory of the Sahara, while the cities of Ceuta and Melilla were regularly present at the heart of the dispute between the two countries, as Morocco has demanded them since its independence in 1956.

The two cities were recognized in the Spanish constitution of 1978 and in 1995 they obtained the status of "independent cities", and Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta dates back to 1580 and Melilla until 1496.

Alternative Tunnel

The former British ambassador to Rabat, Thomas Riley, in an interview with the newspaper “Espanol” in August 2020, pointed out that “there are many opportunities to link Morocco and Gibraltar, and they must be exploited in various fields.”

The British-Moroccan project comes to replace the Spanish-Moroccan project, which has been contemplated for more than 40 years without result. At the Spanish level, a previous experimental phase began by digging an underground crossing with a length of 600 meters in the city of Cadiz in southern Andalusia, and a little more than 200 meters in Morocco. It was closed two years later due to flooding and maintenance problems.

After agreeing on the Brexit file, the British will begin to take over and develop the project, and the line will connect Europe and Africa through the cities closest to the Rock of Gibraltar.

The tunnel will be near the Tangier-Mediterranean port, which is considered the most important economic artery in the Mediterranean, which is why British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to visit Rabat soon to lay the continental link project across Gibraltar.

The project could be a suspension bridge on fixed beams, a suspension bridge on floating beams, or a submerged tunnel supported on the sea floor similar to the tunnel linking Britain to France, depending on contemporary technologies.

After Britain's exit from the European Union, the British intend to start taking over and developing the project, and the line will connect Europe and Africa through the cities closest to the Rock of Gibraltar.

Currently, the two parties do not officially confirm that they have a realistic plan for the project, but the intention to complete that tunnel or bridge between Morocco and Gibraltar is still under negotiation since the signing of agreements between the two countries in October 2019.

The first strategic dialogue between the United Kingdom and Morocco was held in July 2018 in London, hosted by the then Foreign Minister Boris Johnson and attended by his Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita. It aims to enhance cooperation in the political, economic, cultural and security fields.