MEPs mostly back vision for Turku Stockholm fixed link

Five of the six Members of the European Parliament who attended the Europe Forum in Turku support investigating a permanent road and rail connection between Turku and Stockholm, Yle reports. Supporters cite growth, employment and security of supply, while environmental impacts remain a concern.

The proposed connection would combine bridges and tunnels over more than 170 kilometres between Finland and Sweden. If the link and other plans in Mynämäki municipality were realised, a train journey from Mynämäki to Stockholm could take two hours, to Paris nine and a half hours and to London 11 and a half hours.

Supporters call for further study

Left Alliance MEP Li Andersson said the project could support growth, jobs and security of supply.

“I am not taking a position on the environmental impacts now, but I think this is the scale and level of vision at which we should dare to consider transport projects in Finland,” Andersson said.

Anna-Maja Henriksson of the Swedish People’s Party of Finland said projects that improve the movement of people and goods to and from Finland were valuable.

“The question of what is possible is another matter. I think this is an interesting idea and it should certainly not be dismissed,” Henriksson said.

Environmental impacts raise concerns

Green MEP Ville Niinistö also took a broadly positive view but warned that the project would involve numerous bridges and tunnels.

“It is good to keep this as a vision, but it will be challenging from an environmental perspective. We must determine whether the connection can be built without significant harm to the archipelago in the north and around Åland,” Niinistö said.

National Coalition Party MEP Aura Salla said she would prefer a connection beginning in eastern Finland. Her proposed route would run from Joensuu through Lappeenranta, Helsinki and Turku before continuing to Stockholm. She said transporting wood was particularly important because the Saimaa Canal was closed.

Social Democratic Party MEP Eero Heinäluoma said Finland should decide nationally which major projects to promote. He said the European Union could advance proposals from Finland, but should not decide whether the route ran through the Turku archipelago or further north.

Tynkkynen opposes the proposal

Finns Party MEP Sebastian Tynkkynen opposed both the Turku Stockholm connection and a proposed tunnel between Helsinki and Tallinn, calling them risky investments in the current geopolitical situation.

“We have seen what happens at sea and how easy it is to cut cables and connections. From the perspective of security of supply, these would not be the best routes,” Tynkkynen said.

He said major European Union investments should instead be directed towards railway projects in northern Finland and an Arctic Ocean connection, where transporting goods would be safer if a conflict with Russia broke out.

The idea of a permanent connection between the Turku and Stockholm urban regions has been raised repeatedly. Funding for a study of a Stockholm Turku railway connection was reported to have been secured from a parliamentary allocation last December.