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A Spanish government study has concluded that the construction of a tunnel connecting Morocco and Spain is technically feasible.
Vozpópuli news website said the study found that the ambitious project would take approximately a decade to complete and require an investment of around 8.5 billion euros ($9.8 billion) for the Spanish portion alone.
The study conducted by German company Herrenknecht, the world leader in tunnel boring machines, at the request of the state-owned SECEGSA (Spanish Company for Studies on Fixed Communication across the Gibraltar Strait), said the report, published in Morocco world news website on Thursday.
The report, which the Spanish government has had since June, confirms that despite extreme complexity, current technology is capable of executing the project.
According to Vozpópuli, since receiving the study, the government has begun to “land” it internally across different departments, with a view to establishing the foundations for a tender beyond June 2026 – the deadline set to update the 2007 preliminary project.
The Spanish and Moroccan sides have reportedly committed to making a final decision in 2027 regarding the tender for a first exploratory tunnel.
The tunnel would connect Europe and Africa through a railway link spanning approximately 65 kilometres in total, with nearly 40 kilometres of that distance in Spanish territory.
(Writing by N Saeed; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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