Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Investments, Railways, Transport

The presentation was made with representatives of design and research institutions from Shanghai, China, spokespeople for the Tallinn city government said.

Vesterbacka's wish is to build the tunnel with private sector money. According to his project, construction of the 15-billion-euro tunnel could start already in the coming couple of years.

Deputy Mayor Aivar Riisalu said that the good news about the project was that the plan put forward by Vesterbacka and partners was in no way related to the arrival of Rail Baltic.

"This is a fully independent project which is based on private capital, investors, and the best global engineering know-how. What makes this project attractive is that, if there is interest in it, it could be started much earlier, and its aim would be to merge two Nordic cities into a twin city, which has been talked about a lot also earlier. The tunnel would transform Tallinn and Helsinki into single business and cultural area, would attract new investments," Riisalu said.

Deputy Mayor Zuleyxa Izmailova said that, as a vision, twin city has captured the minds of the residents of Tallinn and Helsinki already for years.

She said that of all projects of the tunnel, the project presented by Peter Vesterbacka is the most acceptable to her as a person upholding the Green world view. "That the tunnel can be built and will be feasible also without the new Rail Baltic track that will split the Estonian land is altogether a positive news," she said.

A project called FinEst Link has been launched by the various national institutions of Estonia and Finland and the two capital cities to conduct cost-benefit studies with a view to building a tunnel between the two cities, which would become a part of the joint European transport network in combination with the Rail Baltic high-speed railway.