Switzerland pays for Italian infrastructure

Genoa - Switzerland will finance the railroad upgrade of the Genoa-Rotterdam line with 120 million euros. The agreement was signed yesterday at Genoa, during the Conference on the Reno-Alps Corridor at the Palazzo Ducale,by Maurizio Gentile, CEO of RFI, and Peter Füglistaler, director of the Swiss Federal Office of Transport.

The agreement aims to cover some of the interventions (total: 400 million euros) on the Luino-Gallarate-Novara link, tabled by RFI to adapt the network to the Swiss tunnels of Lötschberg and Gottardo-Ceneri. Gentile explains: “The goal is to increase the capacity of the lines from Switzerland from 180 to 260 trains per day (170 thorough Chiasso and 90 through Luino).

Could that be a gift to Italy, that has been struggling to keep up with the hyperactive Swiss? Not exactly: first of all, Genoa was left out, at least until the third tunnel is completed.

The ports of Northern Europe will benefit the most, because it will be easier to connect with trains of greater capacity crossing the Po Valley, taking more traffic from the ports of Liguria.

It is worth noticing that the Swiss government felt so compelled to do what Italy cannot afford, that it pushed its own Parliament to approve the financing of infrastructure in another country.

Füglistaler adds: “There is a great interest in getting trains up to 4 meters high to Busto Arsizio (the terminal of the Luino line). As a matter of fact we have been asked, by German operators to extend our infrastructure work all the way to Genoa, but Switzerland does not have the funding”.

This agreement will remain an isolated event; the only possible extension is another financing of around 40 million euros for the improvement of the new large intermodal terminal at Milan, a project already in progress and on which Hupac and FS Logistics currently working.

Finally, even though it is true that the Sblocca Itlaia decree included 200 million for the third batch of the third tunnel, it is also true that there are many uncertainties about the remaining part to be financed (the majority) for the completion of the project by 2020.

Guarantees were provided by Gentile who said “if there is continuity of financing and, as it seems, sharing of the territory in this project, which has been defined as strategic, it will go agead: if there are no other obstacles, apart from technical issues obviously, the project will be completed on time”.

Also Riccardo Nencini, deputy Minister of Infrastructure met yesterday with the mayor of Genoa Marco Doria: the division of the third tunnel works into batches and their insertion in the Sblocca Italia decree, is designed to transform this project which is still on paper, into a completed work”.