Proposed Gibraltar Tunnel Raises Concerns for Ceuta’s Economy and Tourism

According to an article published in El Faro de Ceuta on December 29, 1995, the strait tunnel project would be detrimental to Ceuta. The realization of this project would cause damage to the port of the autonomous city which would lose tourists and become a marginalized city. The article insisted on the need for the city authorities to participate in all meetings on this project to raise the problem of Ceuta so that corrective measures can be considered.

Feasibility studies for this project aimed at establishing a "fixed link" between Europe and Africa in the Strait of Gibraltar were launched in 1980 after the creation in Spain of the Spanish Society for Studies on Fixed Communications across the Strait of Gibraltar (SECEG) and the National Society for Strait Studies (SNED) in Morocco. Since then, technicians from both countries, as well as international experts, have participated in meetings, conferences or symposia organized in Tangier, Marrakech, Madrid, Seville, etc. to study all aspects of the project.

The 38.7 kilometer long tunnel should connect Tarifa (Punta Paloma) to Tangier (Ras Malabata) and its realization would require more than 12 billion euros for an expected traffic of 7 to 10 million passengers and 4 to 6 million tons of goods per year. The start of the work, according to the studies, was scheduled for 2005 or 2020 at the latest. But these deadlines do not seem excessive, given that 41 years have elapsed between the first initiative (1979) and the second (2020), less than the Eurotunnel whose first study dates back to 1869 and the work started in 1979, i.e. 110 years later.