Letter from Casablanca
At the port of Algeciras, Spain, bound for Tangier, June 15, 2022. JORGE GUERRERO / AFP
“A study by the German company Herrenknecht confirms that the Morocco-Spain tunnel is technically feasible. The main geological challenges concern the Camarinal Ridge in the Strait of Gibraltar. The Moroccan and Spanish governments plan to make a decision by summer 2027,” published the Swiss daily newspaper Le Matin on Saturday, November 1. Connecting Morocco and Spain by train remains hypothetical, but the approval from German engineers – Herrenknecht manufactures the world’s largest tunnel boring machines – could mark the start of the first underground geotechnical structure between Europe and Africa.
The idea of crossing the Strait of Gibraltar by means other than plane or boat has remained a fantasy for years. The idea first emerged in the 19th century, around the same time as another project that did come to fruition: the Channel Tunnel.
Skeptics have dismissed it as a pipe dream, but optimists point out that it took nearly a century and a half – from the first sketches to the 1994 opening – to establish a fixed link between France and England. The distance from Calais to Dover is about 30 km – and only half as long from Tangier to Tarifa. So why not connect the two cities by rail? King Hassan II, father of Morocco’s current monarch, Mohammed VI, dreamed of just that, even presenting the outlines of the plan at the White House during an official visit to the United States in 1978.
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