Fixed link especially good for larger towns and cities

The new traffic link between Denmark and Germany will strengthen the role of large towns and cities along the route and make them more attractive for localisation and investment. Initially, this will apply to the Øresund cities of Lund, Malmö and Copenhagen, as well as Hamburg. But then will come cities such as Kiel, Lübeck and Rostock, which will however see their ferry business subject to more competition when the fixed link opens.

The analysis was undertaken for Femern A/S by researchers from Sweden, Denmark and Germany under the leadership of Professor Christian Wichmann Matthiessen from the University of Copenhagen. The project analysed the new geography which will result from the new fixed link, as well as the opportunities for creating skills and industrial clusters between the Øresund Region and Northern Germany.

In the report it says that the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link is unlikely to generate the fast traffic growth seen with the Øresund and Great Belt Links. "However, we believe that the link will bring a new, permanent growth regime founded on the large potential for generating value, especially due to new networks between regions with large cities being established, and because a new cross-border regional framework encourages action", the report says.

The report also emphasises that the property market will react to more effective traffic links which give faster access to big cities in neighbouring countries in a significantly more practicable way. "The areas adjacent to the fixed link will become "proper" cross-border regions with neighbours in the other country within daily reach, and the area suitable for daily commutes to cities will be expanded", it says.

"The realistic ambition must be to bring the Fehmarnbelt Region up into the European super league, which today includes the regions surrounding Frankfurt, the Amsterdam area and the Brussels region. One of the ways that can be done is to become a global leader in some core areas: today, we would already be at the top with Life Science if the skills and resources in the Øresund Region were combined with the resources and skills in Northern Germany. And in materials science, with the region's new research centres in Lund and Hamburg we would be a leader globally", says Professor Matthiessen.

For the labour market, the researchers predict that a new and more interconnected labour market will develop between Germany and Denmark – both in terms of increased daily commuting and also more weekly commuting between Hamburg and Copenhagen. Transport time and costs will play a big part in the speed of this integration. The further development of the infrastructure between the centres, particularly for rail traffic, will be of crucial significance for being able to exploit the full potential in the new region in Northern Europe.

The analysis project was today presented at a meeting of politicians in the STRING partnership, which consists of the Scania Region in Sweden, the Capital Region of Denmark, the Zealand Region in Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg in Germany.

The full analysis can be found here (PDF).

Further information can be obtained from Professor Christian Wichmann Matthiessen,
tel. +45 29 72 83 39.