Pressure grows on Merkel's party over Stuttgart railways project

Sep 8, 2010, 18:49 GMT

Stuttgart - Pressure grew Wednesday on Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) over its advocacy of a multi-billion-euro railway tunnelling project in the German city of Stuttgart.

A poll in the south-western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg showed regional support for the Greens party, which opposes plans to drill 60 kilometres of tunnels under the metro Stuttgart region and relocate the main station underground, had risen to 27 per cent.

That would make it the state's second most powerful party and put it within striking distance of the CDU, which currently rules the state. CDU support has ebbed to 35 per cent, Infratest Dimap pollsters said.

The Greens have put themselves at the head of a groundswell movement to stop the 4.1-billion-euro (5.3-billion-dollar) tunnel project, which has already begun with the demolition of one wing of Stuttgart's main station, built in 1928.

Polls show more than half of the state's voters oppose the project. A state general election is due in six months.

Critics mainly worry that the state is not getting value for its money and that the cost will escalate. Germany's Deutsche Bahn railways company is paying only a fraction of the construction cost.

The issue has taken on national implications because the state has previously been CDU heartland and is vital to Merkel's hold on power at the federal level. A takeover by the Greens with Social Democrats as their junior partners would be shake up German politics.

The Greens added to the pressure by releasing an expert report from two eminent consultant engineers, Karlheinz Roessler and Martin Vieregg, that forecast the true cost would double for the tunnels and a supplementary rail project, a new line to the nearby city of Ulm.

The consultants said the two schemes would cost 12 to 18.7 billion euros. Deutsche Bahn had estimated a combined cost of only 7 billion euros.

The engineers said the biggest risks are collapsing rock and seepage in a long tunnel under the suburbs. The Greens commissioned the report using public money from their parliamentary research budget.