During the second day of its meeting in Maribo, Denmark, the BSPC Standing Committee toured the site where the Danish end of the Fehmarn Belt tunnel is being built. Set to fundamentally improve, facilitate and accelerate transport flows between Scandinavia and continental Europe from various perspectives, it is expected to become a major transport route. Afterwards, the Standing Committee discussed ways to better protect maritime infrastructure and to improve safety and the security landscape in the Baltic Sea Region.
Presentations
BSPC President Henrik Møller remarked that the Fehmarn belt tunnel was one of the most significant projects in Denmark in recent years. He believed that it would have a great impact on the Baltic Sea area in cutting down travel times, comparing it to the Rail Baltica project the BSPC Working Group had visited in Riga. Within four weeks, the BSPC had visited Europe’s currently hugest construction sites and informed about the progress.
Presentation by Mr Jens Ole Kaslund, Technical Director
Mr Jens Ole Kaslund explained how the Fehmarn Belt tunnel would reduce travel times. A car would pass through at 110 km/hr in 10 minutes, a train in just 7 minutes at 200 km/hr. Thus, the current travel time from Copenhagen to Hamburg of about 5 hours would shrink to half that, saving 160 kilometres. He explained that at 18 kilometres of length this would be the world’s longest immersed tunnel and, simultaneously, the longest combined road and rail tunnel. The individual elements of the tunnel were pushed into place by tugboats and then sunk into the prepared tunnel trench. Special maintenance elements were interspersed over the length of the tunnel, allowing traffic to continue for most maintenance operations.
Looking at the bigger picture, he laid out the various other connections that had been built earlier, such as the Fehmarnsund bridge on the German side and the Danish Hinterland Railway in Denmark. Several of the railway connections in both countries had to be upgraded to accommodate greater traffic volumes. Zooming out even further, the Fehmarn Belt was part of the overall trans-European transport network connecting the continent from the high north to the deep south. Mr Kaslund moved on to the financing which was based on state-guaranteed loans over an expected amortisation period of 28 years, with additional support of 1.1 billion euros from the EU. He mentioned that they had already proofed this financing model in the earlier Great Belt Bridge and Øresund Bridge projects. Its construction budget of 7.1 billion euros (in 2015 prices) would be wholly covered by the future users since all cars, lorries, and trains would have to pay a fee for transit, comparable to a ferry ticket. To a question from Mr Himanshu Gulati, Mr Kaslund explained that the ticket price would likely be around 90 euros. Considering the execution structure, he noted that the contractors were responsible for design, execution, and quality while the stateside was monitoring and supervising operations to ensure the work’s quality. A large number of companies had already been hired for the tunnel, the portals and ramps, the dredging and reclamation process, installations as well as finally the railway contracts. Moving on to the timetable, Mr Kaslund noted that two work harbours had already been built at both endpoints. The tunnel trench had been almost finished, requiring some additional work in 2024. The first portals and ramps would be installed in the coming months, expected to run well into 2025. From 2024 to 2027, the tunnel elements would be produced and placed. Placing the final connecting element between both tunnel ends, the ongoing installation work, and thorough testing would take the project into 2029 for its estimated opening.
Mr Johannes Schraps inquired about the original schedule. Mr Kaslund replied that earliest estimates at the start of the undertaking in 2002 had targeted 2018. The approval process had taken unexpectedly long; moreover, a lawsuit in Germany had delayed the project for two years. Mr Bodo Bahr remarked that, to his knowledge, there were 100 people working on the German side while the Danish side employed 1,700 people. Mr Kaslund knew of several reasons for this disparity, but primarily, it was due to the factory producing the elements with 1,000 employees was situated in Denmark. In general, it was a Danish project with Danish financing. As far as the work on the tunnel was concerned, about the same number of workers were busy, and the German side would catch up to the Danish progress soon. Mr Schraps asked about the major challenges. Among those, Mr Kaslund saw the early optimism about the speed of the German approval process as a top obstacle that had to be overcome. This had led to difficult negotiations in the contracting process. Aside from that, more – as he put it – classic challenges were coming in the construction itself, with the exacting work of depositing and connecting the elements. Ms Anna Kassautzki asked about the emergency response plans as well as the compensation plans for the environmental impact, especially regarding carbon-capturing seaweed. On the safety side, Mr Kaslund noted that emergency doors were placed every 100 metres throughout the tunnel, allowing evacuation from the railway tube into the car section. Conversely, in the case of a car accident, people could transit into the road section in the opposite direction. In both cases, they would be picked up by bus and brought to safety. The sections would be closed off, to prevent people from trying to walk up to nine kilometres to the exit. Furthermore, the ventilation system would keep the other tubes clear. Regarding the environment, he saw the major impact on land since the dredged-up soil would be deposited behind the dykes on the Danish side. Some of that would form new beaches for leisure time, others would serve renaturalisation efforts. After the tunnel was in place, the seabed would restore itself through sand movement covering the construction. As for seaweed, most of the tunnel was too deep for the plants to grow, so they were investigating the shallower ends for replanting. Prof Jānis Vucāns was interested in the financing and ownership. Mr Kaslund explained that his company managing construction and later operations was fully state-owned. To a further question about the ferries, he noted those companies believed they would continue their operations. He also confirmed a comment by President Møller that the ferry enterprises had lobbied to stop the tunnel project.
Mr Kaslund showed a number of pictures outlining the construction process at both endpoints and the elements. He also referred to the recent heavy storm “of the century” surge that had caused no damage on the Danish side but had crested the dyke on the German side, delaying work for two weeks. Moving on, he spoke about his side’s strategic priorities for sustainability, categorized into environment, social, and corporate governance. In the social aspects, his side was engaging the local community, creating well-paying, diverse jobs along with training the staff. With 500 apprenticeships, these were not only jobs but ensured future capabilities. Community engagement was represented by a newsletter for neighbours as well as visitor centres and lookout points. In addition, there were civic meetings and events such as open site visits or World Cleanup Day. Regarding the environmental impact, he noted that the tunnel was set to last for 120 years despite the harsh marine surrounding; they were trying to use as climate-friendly as possible materials, but unfortunately the older substances were the ones proven to survive such long-term exposure rather than the less carbon-heavy newer materials. The areas covered by construction were counterbalanced by renaturalisation projects. A round-the-clock monitoring system called Aegir had been set up that allowed for full transparency. Environmental experts could follow developments minute by minute, and the relevant data was saved.
Mr Bodo Bahr remarked that the safety of critical infrastructure was becoming a crucial topic and asked how that had affected the tunnel project. Mr Kaslund replied that the construction was conforming to all the regulations but had not taken extra measures. He felt that protection was up to the navy or similar institutions. Ms Anna Kassautzki asked if the construction reflected the likelihood of more extreme weather events such as the recent “storm of the century”. Mr Kaslund confirmed that there were pressure systems to prevent flooding, adding that the dykes were set up to prevent so-called ten-thousand-year rather than hundred-year events. Mr Himanshu Gulati inquired about comparisons to other projects. Mr Kaslund reflected that the Øresund tunnel of some four kilometres length had served as a template, along with a similar project in Hong Kong. The Fehmarn Belt tunnel was the latest incarnation with the most developed technology. Ms Kristina Herbst wondered about working from two sides towards the middle. Mr Kaslund saw this as offering more flexibility in the construction process, ensuring that one side would always make progress even if the other might be facing problems. Overall, it was simply a faster process. To another question, he answered that the deepest point of the tunnel would be 45 metres below the sea level.
The participants deepened further questions with Mr Kaslund during the subsequent tour of the visitor centre and the construction site.
Moving on to the next presentation in Maribo, BSPC President Henrik Møller noted that defence was one of the cornerstones of the Baltic Sea region’s security architecture and one of the Danish presidency’s core issues. Thus, he was glad to welcome Mr Tobias Liebetrau from the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen as an expert. His current research covered four main areas: cybersecurity, great power rivalry and technology development, big tech international politics as well as maritime sub-sea infrastructure. His presentation to the BSPC Standing Committee was entitled: Maritime Infrastructure and the Baltic Sea Security Landscape.
Presentation by Mr Tobias Liebetrau, University of Copenhagen
Mr Tobias Liebetrau started by pointing out the increased interest in maritime infrastructure – not just because modern society was more and more relying on it but also because of recent incidents threatening it. First, he explained that maritime infrastructure consisted of the sectors transport – shipping but also bridges –, energy – platforms, pipelines –, communications – data cables –, fishery – ships and aquaculture –, and eco-systems – biodiversity, carbon sink, and beaches. The latter two were often not included, yet these were also important to consider and protect. It was just as vital to acknowledge that they were reliant on each other. Therefore, it made sense to look at maritime infrastructure as a whole rather than splitting it up into separate fields. At the same time, it was different from region to region, with the Baltic Sea region for instance being quite congested. Unfortunately, this infrastructure field was weakly defined from a policy point of view, with a wide divergence among nations in what was considered politically what was critical and what was not.
Moving on to the threats to this infrastructure, one distinction was whether they were intentional or not. The latter were natural disasters and accidents contrasted with the former, i.e., acts of war, terrorism, grey zone and hybrid attacks. Mr Liebetrau stated that preparations against conventional war-time attacks were in place across the board, but those incidents intentionally straddling the line – such as sabotage – were more difficult to tackle. He pointed out that many of these were not easy to categorise, as, for instance, state-sponsored sabotage could be made to look like an accident or terrorism. Deterrence had not worked, he noted, referring to the Nord Stream attack. Thus, resilience was crucial. Specifically, he addressed a recent incident when a Baltic connector and a telecom cable between Finland and Sweden were hit on 8 October 2023. While an accident could not be ruled out, suspicious though inconclusive evidence linked a Russian and a Chinese vessel, underlining the difficulty of identifying possible culprits or even intent in the first place. To him, that indicated the need for better protection of these vulnerable pieces of the maritime infrastructure. At the same time, he argued for better surveillance of the locations and actions of ships – such as the Russian vessel in question.
Mr Liebetrau pointed to a number of initiatives to improve critical maritime infrastructure on the EU and NATO level. At the same time, one had to keep in mind that each region had its specific characteristics with different types of infrastructure, various countries, and divergent threats. As an example, he explained that sub-sea data cables in the Baltic Sea mainly connected two countries, were owned by one company or nation, and tended to be thirty years old and would have to be replaced. In the North Sea, on the other hand, many American big tech companies owned intercontinental data cables. The next aspect was greater collaboration and information exchange across countries but also between the public and private sectors as well as in-between private companies. He highlighted the often complex ownership structure, adding to the difficulty. Yet there was a lack of institutions clearly assigned to this task. Subsequently, he spoke about surveillance, threat detection, and rapid response. He saw these areas equally underdeveloped. Technologies such as undersea drones were available and could be put into action at affordable costs. Contingency and repair were the next field Mr Liebetrau addressed as it might mitigate the impact of any grey zone attack – which would also lower the interest in such actions. As an example, coordination between industry and public authorities might speed up repairs to undersea cables that otherwise would take weeks or months. This led him to call for better aligned governance and legislation, both at the Baltic Sea and the European level.
President Møller asked how the surveillance situation had changed with Finland and – hopefully – Sweden both joining NATO. Mr Liebetrau confirmed that this would increase the capacity for keeping track of the goings-on, but it would require more governance measures for this integration. This opened a window of opportunity to implement these, to improve surveillance as well as cooperation and information sharing.
Ms Anna Kassautzki was interested in specific measures to protect the infrastructure. Mr Liebetrau pointed to sensors that could be installed in data cables and pipelines which could detect sound and movement for surveillance, although this was a costly endeavour. Moreover, multiple different measures were needed for better coverage. At the same time, though, they could also be used to investigate biodiversity and the seabed.
Prof Jānis Vucāns wondered how countries could enforce that private companies setting up such infrastructure would implement security measures. Mr Liebetrau conceded that such incentivising was a challenge, and it had been for decades since nations had sold off their infrastructure. 9/11, the Madrid bombings, and many subsequent cases had led to airflight security being tightened, more recently cybersecurity. Some of this experience could be drawn upon to transfer to maritime security.
Mr Bodo Bahr wondered about plans protecting core projects in the Baltic Sea area, particularly regarding maritime law and the IMO. Mr Liebetrau was not aware of any legal initiatives. Again, he pointed to a better alignment of national laws and the interpretation of maritime law as a way forward. As for specific measures, he noted that some offshore projects were being delayed because it was uncertain what should be imposed on the private companies and how that would affect their profitability. In Denmark, this was a huge discussion.
Mr Møller considered that covert measures would seem more probable. Mr Liebetrau sketched out the most likely scenario involving the use of fishing vessels or other commercial merchant ships disguised as normal traffic. Cables and pipelines could be sufficiently damaged with an anchor or a dredge; no high-tech explosives were needed. This was also where their side was more vulnerable. In other words, simple and limited measures could exact considerable damage.
BSPC President Henrik Møller thanked the expert for the profound insight into the current challenges regarding Maritime Infrastructure and the Baltic Sea Security Landscape. The issue will be further deepened during the Danish Presidency.
The BSPC Standing Committee meeting was concluded with an outlook on its next meeting on 4 March 2024.