When cars and trains emerge from the Fehmarn Belt tunnel, a new tunnel beneath the Fehmarn Sound is intended to carry them onwards to the German mainland.
But that connection has moved further into the future. A new German plan now puts the opening at no later than 2035, compared with the previous expectation of 2031/2032.
The Danish-German Chamber of Commerce does not expect this in itself to make German companies generally more reluctant to invest in Denmark. The main concern is for projects that depend directly on the new transport connection being ready.
- For investments where profitability depends directly on when the new transport link is completed and what capacity it will have, further delays could mean that projects are postponed or reassessed in terms of their scale, says Andreas Wenzel, CEO of the Danish-German Chamber of Commerce.
He does not expect German companies in general to become more cautious about investing in Denmark. The broader cooperation between the two countries is not fundamentally at risk because of another delay to the Fehmarn project.
But along the Fehmarn corridor, logistics and transport are particularly exposed. This applies especially to investments in logistics centres, transshipment facilities and commercial sites on Lolland-Falster and in northern Germany.
For companies building their business around the connection, a reliable timetable is crucial.
- They need to know when they can count on certain transport times and a given level of capacity. Repeated delays make investment decisions more difficult and at the same time weaken confidence in the reliability of public infrastructure planning.
Andreas Wenzel is therefore calling for action on the German side.
- Germany needs to give much higher priority to the rapid completion of the entire corridor. We need a realistic and credible timetable, targeted coordination between the parties involved and, above all, the political will to ensure the necessary progress on the project.
