After the return of talk about the improvement of relations between Morocco and Spain, there was also talk about the project of digging the "Gibraltar Tunnel" that connects the two countries, a 40-year-old project that aims mainly to link the continent of Europe with the continent of Africa.

The late Moroccan King Hassan II discussed with the former King of Spain, Juan Carlos, the construction of the tunnel between the two countries.

The project enjoys many economic benefits and advantages, including the transportation of goods and travelers between the two banks of the two countries and the strengthening of the economy of the two continents, but the public in Morocco believes that it needs a tunnel that takes it out of the cycle of high prices and poverty, and it is not a project that will be completed with the debts that the poor will bear in the end.

In its episode on 20/2/2023, the Networks program monitored tweets by Moroccan citizens expressing their dissatisfaction with the project, including a tweet by Hussein Hehti, who condemns the debt policy with which major projects are implemented and paid by the poor. Poverty, the World Bank pays and distributes debts to the poor, even the projects in which we poor people work do not exceed 80 dirhams.

In turn, Jawad al-Zaydun called on the authorities to build a tunnel to get the poor out of the situation they have reached, so he wrote, "We need a quick tunnel that takes us out of this high price that has destroyed the simple citizen, so here is the real tunnel that we want."

As for Rashid, he saw that the tunnel is an opportunity for emigration instead of the death boats, saying, "I mean, shall we move to Spain without the death boats?"

Where is the tunnel located?

The digging of the tunnel begins in the Strait of Gibraltar, through which approximately 100,000 ships pass annually, and it will extend under the sea, and the executors will need to dig for a total of 38 kilometers, of which 28 kilometers are under the sea.

As for the depth, it will be 475 meters below sea level, and there will be two railways and a parallel tunnel for services, which will link Malabata in Tangier, Morocco, and Punta Paloma, in Tarifa, Spain.

The governments of the two countries had assigned a Moroccan and a Spanish company to study the economic feasibility of the project, which will facilitate the transit of 13 million tons of goods and 12.8 million passengers annually in the medium term, and a German company will undertake the task of implementation.

Obstacles await

The completion of the project is accompanied by a number of obstacles, the first of which is that the Gibraltar region meets the European tectonic plate with the African tectonic plate, and it is a clay soil that is not calcareous like that of the Channel Sea.

The project may also face opposition from European countries that fear waves of irregular migration.