Spain Boosts Funding for Gibraltar Strait Tunnel Project to Prevent Closure

SECEGSA had warned in a report published in 2023 that "if the coming years continue with subsidy figures lower than the company’s actual expenses, this will lead in 2024 to a situation of non-viability due to economic blockade". The document states that at the end of the 2022 fiscal year, the company had 1.12 million in subsidies from previous years, pending execution, reports Vozpopuli.

Taking into account the alert from SECEGSA, the Spanish government has increased its subsidies in 2023 to 750,000 euros, compared to 100,000 the previous year. The company should also benefit from 750,000 euros in subsidies this year. At the same time, it has already received 1.27 million euros in aid from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan financed by the European Union.

In total, SECEGSA has obtained nearly 2.8 million euros in aid between 2023 and 2024. To this amount, at least about one million additional euros in expected European funds by June 2026 should be added. Last year, the company entrusted the engineering and consulting firm Ineco with the update of the preliminary project of the Morocco-Spain tunnel carried out in 2007. A service that should cost SECEGSA 2.4 million euros.

According to estimates, the tunnel between Morocco and Spain should require an investment of 6 billion dollars. The new studies provide for a connection of the tunnel to the European rail network, which would facilitate the search for financing for the realization of this mega-project. SECEGSA and its Moroccan counterpart SNED are working to complete the tunnel under the strait before 2030, the year in which Morocco and Spain will jointly host the World Cup with Portugal.