Finland and Estonia ponder undersea railway tunnel

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From Reuters

A bit out of area ... but then we learn from seeing what others do around the world.  I understand that ideas are being sought as to how to take the Island Line forward, and perhaps ...

Finland and Estonia on Tuesday agreed to explore the possibility of constructing an undersea railway tunnel between their capitals.

Tens of thousands of Estonians work in the Helsinki region, many of whom commute over the Baltic Sea weekly, and many Finnish tourists visit Tallinn.

"Helsinki and Tallinn together form an economic area of approximately 1.5 million people. To fully utilize the area's potential, transport between the cities should be faster and flow easier than at present," the city of Helsinki said in a statement.

It added that a tunnel would shorten the travel time between the cities to about 30 minutes, from at least 90 minutes currently by fast ferry. The tunnel would be 65-92 km (40-60 miles) long.

[John R]

... and perhaps the Penarth - Weston tunnel, which will improve connectivity no end between North Somerset and (the former) South Glamorgan.

[Bmblbzzz]

It's quite likely that Estonia sees this as more than just a transport link. There are a large number of Russians living in Estonia ^ off the top of my head it could be a third of the population ^ who, due to decisions taken when Estonia became independent, were never given Estonian citizenship. So they not only speak Russian and think of themselves as Russian but have Russian citizenship. Estonia fears that Putin (or perhaps whoever succeeds him one day) could use this as a lever to interfere in the country's government or even annex part of it, in a similar way to Crimea. Estonia is culturally close to Finland and since the early 90s has viewed Finland as a sort of protector, so this tunnel not only emphasises that link but could give Finland a legitimate excuse to support Estonia militarily in the event it was needed.

Unless France has unsuspected ambitions, the Isle of Wight is not in a similar position!