Ceneri base tunnel: Switzerland built the NEAT for itself

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A European project? Switzerland built the NEAT for itself

With the inauguration of the Ceneri Base Tunnel, the flat railway through the Alps is completed after almost 30 years. It is questionable whether it will ever develop its full effect.

Every now and then there are moments when you realize how old you are. I was a young journalist when, in 1992, the electorate clearly accepted the Neue Eisenbahn-Alpentransversale (Neat). The then Transport Minister, Adolf Ogi, put his heart and soul into this from different sides, including the Greens! – megaproject fought used.

28 years later, the NEAT is complete. On Friday, Federal President Simonetta Sommaruga, Federal Councilor Ignazio Cassis and Ticino District President Norman Gobbi will commission the 15.4-kilometer-long base tunnel at Monte Ceneri. There will be no big party like four and a half years ago on the Gotthard by Corona.

Either way, the opening is a milestone: with the three base tunnels through Lötschberg, Gotthard and Ceneri, Switzerland has made a decades-long dream of a flat railway across the Alps come true. Travel time between Zurich and Lugano will be two hours from December. Switzerland spent around 23 billion francs on this feat.

My average age is also shown on another date: the inauguration of Ceneri on Friday takes place almost exactly 40 years after the opening of the Gotthard road tunnel. Federal Councilor Hans Hürlimann said a memorable phrase at the time: “This tunnel is not a heavy traffic corridor.”

It was pure illusion, because of course the Gotthard Tunnel quickly became a magnet for trucks from all over Europe. The construction of NEAT was also driven by the goal of moving heavy traffic from highway to rail. The Alpine Initiative, which was surprisingly accepted in 1994, created additional pressure in this regard.

It has not really been implemented to this day. Around 900,000 trucks still circulate in Switzerland each year. Is everything okay with the Neat? It can be doubted, and not only because there are already conflicts between freight and passenger trains. You could get stronger at the Ceneri because the Ticino S-Bahn will go through the tunnel.

The main problem, however, is the European level, because from the Swiss point of view, the Neat is the nucleus of a transit corridor in which containers or semi-trailers with a total height of up to four meters must be transported continuously by rail through all the tunnels from the port of Rotterdam on the North Sea to Genoa.

NEAT is “a great Swiss masterpiece because it was conceived and designed in a European way from the beginning,” writes Peter Flüglistaler, Director of the Federal Office for Transport (FOT), in a contribution to the inauguration of the Ceneri. The Neat makes “Switzerland a little more European and Europe a lot more Swiss,” says Füglistaler.

It is true that the European Union (EU) with the Land Transport Agreement of 1999 – part of the Bilateral I – accepted the Swiss transport policy with the performance-based heavy vehicle tariff (HVF). This refutes the allegation that the EU did nothing to finance NEAT. It did so indirectly through the HVF.

However, it is questionable whether Neat is making Europe “much more Swiss”. Because the access routes are difficult. That is less true in the south. The “sloppy” Italians largely delivered and completed the four-meter corridor thanks to structural and operational measures. It is the “thorough” Germans who have failed.

The extension of the Rhine Valley Railway between Basel and Karlsruhe to four lanes has been greatly delayed due to thousands of objections. This is a bottleneck, as the track descent at Rastatt in 2017 showed. This led to the blockade of the Rhine Valley Railway for several weeks. Now, the expansion should only be completed in 20 years.

“When I became Minister of Transport, I immediately told the Germans that it would not work,” Simonetta Sommaruga said in an interview with CH Media. Last year it reached an agreement with Germany for an additional 50 freight trains to run on the route every day. According to the BAV, this means that the claim can be “covered until further notice.”

Furthermore, Switzerland wants to implement an alternative route on the left bank of the Rhine, through France and into Belgium. But nothing is ready to be announced yet. Sommaruga emphasizes that the relocation policy is “a big problem throughout Europe, also due to the climate debate.” However, one wonders whether Switzerland does not overestimate its role as a transit country.

Italy only complied because Switzerland financed the four-meter corridor with 230 million francs. “Italians don’t care about relocation,” wrote the “Tages-Anzeiger” seven years ago. The share of the railroad in freight transport is less than ten percent, and other railway projects have priority for Italians.

This refers to the base tunnel at Mont Cenis (opening planned for 2026), which allows a high-speed connection between Lyon and Turin, and the Brenner tunnel to Innsbruck (opening 2028). Both are “real” European projects, largely funded by the EU.

They are also an indicator for the SVP and the like, who like to indulge in the fantasy that Switzerland could bring the EU to its knees if it blocks alpine traffic axes. Europe depends much less on Swiss transport routes than we think, and with Mont Cenis and Brenner this development will intensify.

Monetary gifts abroad are “the price of a relocation policy that Switzerland wants more than anyone,” said the “Tages-Anzeiger” in 2013. In the current issue of its magazine, the Alpine Initiative warns of a further increase in North-South Transportation, because China is investing in the expansion of northern Italian ports.

Perhaps the federal president is right and the climate crisis will promote the switch to rail. The Neat is a great success, but overall the suspicion I had 28 years ago is confirmed: Switzerland may consider it a European project, but it actually built the expensive tunnels for itself.