The construction of a bridge between Malta and Gozo would come with a price tag in the region of €750 million, according to the report by Chinese experts that the government has been reluctant to publish.
The Prime Minister facing the press the day after the incident on Friday
But sourcing the funding would not be the only obstacle in the way, by far. Environmental considerations attached to the project are likely to become a major bone of contention, should the government forge ahead with the project and issue an international call for expressions of interest.
These include, amongst others, a major invasive impact on Comino, should the preferred option be that of dividing the bridge into two sections, with the bridge resting on the island of Comino. It is likely, according to the Chinese report, that this option would be the most costeffective as it would avoid the construction of more pillars in the deep waters between Malta and Gozo.
The tunnel feasibility study commissioned by the previous administration provided four route options, three of which would pass under Comino, while a fourth would wind its way around the island.
In the three options that could see a tunnel bored beneath Comino, the report stated: “It has been assumed that the land surface of the island of Comino would remain untouched due to its environmental sensitivity. The tunnel would be well below sea level as it crosses Comino.”
Back in June 2013, the government had announced that a Chinese state-owned company that specialised in designing and constructing bridges had offered to finance the €4 million study to assess the feasibility of a bridge link between Malta and Gozo.
During the signing of a memorandum of understanding with China Communications Construction Co. Ltd, which offered to fund the €4 million report, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had said that it was the Chinese company that had approached the government to carry out the study. He said that, following the study, the government would not be obliged to build the bridge and, if it did, the government would not be obliged to choose the Chinese company. Furthermore, he had also insisted that Gozitans would be consulted before any such decision was made.
The government had also instructed the company to exclude the possibility of a bridge passing through or over Comino. Gozo Minister Anton Refalo had gone so far as to hint that a referendum could be held to see what the Gozitans themselves thought about such a permanent link with Malta.
On 28 October, in reply to a Parliamentary Question, Dr Refalo told Nationalist MP Chris Said that the studies into the possibility of having a bridge or a tunnel to link Malta and Gozo had been widened to include other alternatives, but what such alternatives were was not mentioned. Dr Said had asked whether the government still intended to hold a referendum in Gozo for Gozitans to weigh in with their own verdict on the contentious proposal.
Answering another parliamentary question on the same day, Dr Refalo said the government was undertaking all the necessary studies with a view to launching a fixed wing air service between the two islands, which has always been something of a contentious proposition.
The 28 October answer was the most detailed answer yet to a barrage of questions on the project tabled by various Opposition MPs, but each time the questions were met with virtual non-answers.
This newsroom has also sent questions to the Ministry, along with a number of reminders, but no replies have been forthcoming to date.
Another option is to have a fast ferry service between Valletta and Mgarr, Gozo, which had been included by the Labour Party in its election manifesto. The PL had also spoken about the possibility of a fixed wing or helicopter service and a tunnel between the two islands.
This newsroom is informed that the idea of a fast ferry operating between Valletta and Gozo, which has been described by many as the most feasible of the options on the table, has been scrapped. In fact, it was not mentioned in Budget 2015 on Monday.
The airstrip option, however, appears to still be on the cards, with Budget 2015 having said that studies are currently underway to construct a “rural airfield” in Gozo.
In his post-Budget Speech press conference on Monday, the Prime Minister said that the feasibility study commissioned by the government into the possibility of building an airstrip in Gozo showed that the proposal was viable and would go ahead. This, he said, would give Gozo an air link to Malta which would encourage tourists to visit the sister island, possibly even as a destination in its own right.
But while the full feasibility study into the bridge option has now been finalised, one for the tunnel option has not been commissioned.
The preliminary study commissioned by the previous administration had ascertained that the construction stage for a tunnel linking the two islands would take between five and seven years and would cost, in 2010 prices, in the range of €156 million to €492 million for a single bore, threelane, bi-directional tunnel on the shortest practical alignment route.
Such a project, the report said, could be co-financed by the EU under the Cohesion Fund if a road tunnel link between Malta and Gozo is defined on Malta’s TEN-T network.