Denmark to build bridge to Germany across the Baltic (Roundup)

Sep 3, 2008, 12:04 GMT

Copenhagen - Denmark signed an agreement with Germany on Wednesday to build a mega-bridge between them, over an arm of the Baltic Sea, and complete the Danes' dream of linking their main islands to the European mainland to the south.

The 19-kilometre suspension bridge will give traffic a clear, straight-line run from Copenhagen to Hamburg and southern Europe, and will also benefit Sweden.

Danish Transport Minister Carina Christensen and her German counterpart Wolfgang Tiefensee signed the bridge accord in Copenhagen.

Construction is to begin in 2012. It will not be till 2018 that the first trucks and trains will drive across the Fehmarn Belt, a strait between the Danish island of Lolland and the German island of Fehmarn. The islands already have bridge links to the mainland.

Denmark's government will pay most of the costs, but hopes to ultimately recoup the credits from a toll, predicted to be about 60 euros (88 dollars) per car per crossing, similar to current ferry fares.

The project closes one of the last bridgeable gaps in the landmass occupied by the European Union. Fixed links already exist, but they involve a detour via Denmark's Jutland peninsula, which is part of the European mainland.

The bridge will also provide Sweden with direct road access to the European heartland. Sweden already has a link to the Danish island of Zealand, where Copenhagen is located, over the Oresund mega-bridge.

Environmentalists have attacked the project, saying seabirds and migrating birds will either collide with the bridge or be frightened by it. A German nature-protection group, NABU, said Wednesday it would challenge the plan in the courts.

Replacing car ferries that currently depart half-hourly across the strait round the clock will reduce the four-and-a-half-hour motorway drive between Copenhagen and the German city of Hamburg by about an hour. The inter-city route goes by way of five islands.

The bridge will cross the narrowest part of the strait, between the little Danish port of Rodby and Puttgarden on Fehmarn.

The bridge itself is just part of a larger infrastructure project which the Danish parliament approved Tuesday.

Total costs are estimated at 5.6 billion euros (8.1 billion dollars). The Danish government is to contribute 4.8 billion euros. Germany's part will be confined to upgrading its road and rail approaches to the bridge.