Big Dig in the Mediterranean

Eighteen years from now an old curtain will rise to expose a production that will pave the path for African and European unification once again. The deep blue color of the Mediterranean Sea will not lose a twinkle, the Strait of Gibraltar will still separate Spain from Morocco, but the underlying sea bed—and possibly Spanish-Moroccan relations—will never be the same again. No, it isn’t a miscalculation of a Pangea Ultima configuration; the governments of Spain and Morocco just agreed to construct an underwater tunnel to connect their rail systems. But with their announcement came little fanfare.

Shortly following the announcement in December of 2003, former Spanish Development Minister Francisco Álvarez Cascos likened the project to those of the Suez Canal in the 19th century and the Panama Canal in the 20th century. But unlike those grand feats of engineering and technological prowess, the building of the Gibraltar Tunnel seems more like a symbolic endeavor that the world can do without.

A little more than a decade ago, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterand officially opened a similar experiment: The Chunnel, the underwater tunnel to connect England and France. The conclusions, however, speak to the failure of the results to satisfy the hypotheses. Eurotunnel, the group which manages and operates the tunnel predicted high passenger and freight traffic. Instead, low volumes of both passenger and freight traffic is trapping the company in quicksand—which Spain and Morocco did not heed as a cautionary tale.

The advantages purported in building the Gibraltar Tunnel include increases in trade and cooperation as well as development of communications. But attempts by both governments to solicit part of an estimated $10 billion budget from the European Union are not reassuring. Since the completion of the English Channel tunnel, shares of stock that funded the project lost a great percentage of their value and operator Eurotunnel is limping with minimal hope that freight and passenger train traffic will increase.

While economic disadvantage can be easily quantified, only a hint from the current relations of the Spanish and Moroccan governments can predict the toll on the social landscape. The two countries both claim the cities Ceuta and Melilla that lie in Northern Africa—a gripe that has caused tensions for three centuries. In fact, a year and a half before the announcement, Spanish marines and Moroccan soldiers were caught in a wrangle in the islet of Perejil, which each country claims as its own.

The past few years have seen an improvement in Spanish-Moroccan relations; mainly because cooperation on economic development and immigration enforcement substituted the bitter territorial disputes. Immigration issues, however, pose a grave problem for both countries and can only be exacerbated by the planned tunnel. Illegal immigration woes from the English Channel tunnel—refugees jumping from bridges onto moving trains, Eurotunnel losing £5 million per month as a result—do not bode well for the two countries that continuously experience waves of Moroccan refugees crossing the strait in search of a better life.

Unresolved issues—some culturally based—between the Spanish and Moroccan governments will not be solved with physical structures and tangible parameters. More extensive and comprehensive modes of communication are necessary before building a tunnel.

With sparse information regarding the benefits of a tunnel, its construction remains a psychological mystery. The plan carries a tone of a challenging exercise in engineering prowess, but research into the economic, political, and social advantage is an exercise that needs honing. Set to operate in the year 2025, it’s doubtful that the years between will foment any fanfare, but the real test will be whether the tunnel’s success outlives the fanfare or lack thereof.

Patrick Jean Baptiste ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, is a biochemical sciences concentrator in Cabot House. Tunnel or no tunnel, he wishes he were touring Gibraltar instead of researching pancreatic mesenchyme in Boston.