The European motorway will stretch more than 1500km across five countries – but you won’t be able to drive it by private car.
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Image: Mapcreator.io / Joel Peltonen / Yle. Käännösteksti Maiju Hakalahti / Yle
On Friday, President Alexander Stubb signed off on an amendment to a European roads agreement allowing European motor route 16 (E16) to be extended across Finland. The Transport Ministry is now preparing legislation to formalise that move, which is largely symbolic – but will likely lead to more EU funding.
The designated E16 road now runs across Northern Ireland, Scotland, Norway and Sweden. However, there are no passenger ferries between the countries, except within the UK.
The route begins in Derry, Northern Ireland, going to Belfast before connecting to Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland. It then picks up in Bergen, Norway, crossing the Scandinavian Peninsula to Gävle on Sweden’s east coast. The new stretch will be from Rauma on Finland’s west coast to Kotka in the southeast.
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The easternmost point of the five-nation route will be Mussalo harbour in Kotka, southeast Finland. Image: Kalle Purhonen / Yle
A year ago, Finland proposed to the UN Economic Commission for Europe that the highway be extended through Finland.
Its segment will be some 400 kilometres long, making it the second-longest national section of the route. Altogether the E16 will extend about 1,580km.
“Next year, European route 16 will run from Northern Ireland all the way to the Kotka port! E6 will link one of the most critical east-west road connections in Finland even more strongly to the west and strengthen Finland’s national security, security of supply and economy,” Minister of Transport and Communications Lulu Ranne (Finns) said in a government press release on Friday.
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Customs at the Port of Rauma, where the Finnish E16 will start. Image: Katja Halinen / Yle
She noted that the government has “already made decisions that will improve the condition of the future E16 road in Finland”. Alongside its swingeing austerity measures, it has earmarked more than 200 million euros to upgrade highways 12 and 15 between the end of this year and next spring.
No passenger ferries except within UK
The Finnish stretch of the E16 will not include any new roadways. Rather it will be a redesignation of existing roads, mostly Route 12 between Rauma on the west coast and Kouvola in the southeast. There it will align with the current Route 15 to Mussalo, site of Finland’s largest container terminal within the Port of HaminaKotka.
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Mussalo harbour in the southern part of Kotka. Image: Mari Siltanen / Yle, Mapcreator, Open Street Map
In the Tampere region, the E16 will include the ring road. The highway will be marked with both new E16 numbering and the old national numbering.
The longest segment of the E16 is through Norway, measuring 630km. That includes the world’s longest road tunnel, the 24.5 km Lærdal Tunnel. The 360km Swedish part goes from the Norwegian border to the port city of Gävle.
Although there is a car ferry between Belfast and Scotland, there are no longer any direct ferries between the UK and Norway or between Gävle and Rauma, although there are cargo shipping routes – so it would be theoretically possible to travel by lorry from Kotka to Derry.