Towards the opening of the Fehmarn Belt connection, the pressure is increasing to develop the European TEN-T corridor as a more cohesive railway network from Northern Scandinavia towards the continent.
TEN-T is the EU's designated network of transport corridors across countries, which aims to better connect roads, railways, ports, and terminals, making transport faster and more robust.
Sweden is highlighted as a potential bottleneck. Both politicians and business actors point out that capacity and speed in several parts of the Swedish network could limit the benefits of the new fixed link between Denmark and Germany if the expansions do not happen faster.
Great benefit for the Swedes
Stig Rømer Winther, who is the director of Fehmarn Belt Development, calls for a higher pace in Sweden.
- There is a risk that Sweden, which pushed hard to get the Fehmarn connection, now instead ends up as a stumbling block, says Stig Rømer Winther.
Thus, Stig Rømer Winther points to the fact that Sweden could end up gaining a lot from the fixed link to Germany. With the Øresund connection, the neighbouring country was linked with Denmark, and with the Fehmarn connection, the journey to the vast German market becomes even shorter.
In Skåne, the regional council chairman and the newly elected Greater Copenhagen chairman, Carl Johan Sonesson, will put pressure on the government to get more railway investments into the national plan, which will be adopted in the spring. The focus is, among other things, on expansions around Lund and Helsingborg.
Warnings are also coming from other Swedish regions that the lack of expansion of central routes could cost competitiveness and weaken confidence in the railway.
