Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link

Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link
Map showing the planned Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link in the Danish–German highway system
Crosses	Fehmarn Belt
Official name	Femernbælt Link
Maintained by	Femern A/S
Characteristics
Design	Tunnel
History
Construction start	2017
Construction end	2028

The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link (Danish: Femern Bælt-forbindelsen, German: Fehmarnbelt-Querung) is a planned immersed tunnel that is proposed to connect the Danish island of Lolland with the German island of Fehmarn. This would cross over the Fehmarn Belt in the Baltic Sea – 18 km (11 mi) wide – hence providing a direct link by railway and highway between northern Germany and Lolland, and thence to the Danish island of Zealand and Copenhagen. This route is known in German as the Vogelfluglinie and in Danish as the (literally, "bird flight line", indicating this major bird migration route).

Fehmarn is already connected by bridge with the German mainland, and Lolland is already connected by a tunnel and bridges with Zealand over the island Falster. Furthermore, Zealand is already connected with the Swedish coast via the Øresund Bridge. Although there is already a fixed connection between Zealand and Germany, going via the Great Belt, Funen and Jutland, the Fehmarn Belt fixed link would provide an easier and speedier route from Germany to Zealand, Sweden, and Norway.

The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link was tentatively expected to be completed in the year 2018, but in 2012 the completion date was estimated to be 2021, in 2014 further pushed to 2024, and in 2015 – to 2028. Although originally conceived as a bridge, Femern A/S (the Danish state-owned company tasked with designing and planning the link) announced in December 2010 that a tunnel was preferable, and the tunnel idea received support from a large majority of the Danish parliament in January 2011. In February 2015, the draft bill for the construction was introduced to the Danish parliament, and the Danish government submitted an application for DKK 13 billion (€1.7 billion) in EU grants, supported by Germany and Sweden. In June 2015, €589m of EU funding was awarded to Denmark by the European Commission under its Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) scheme, allowing the tunnel project to go ahead.