June 30, 2007 (LPAC)--On June 29 the governments of Denmark and Germany signed the long-awaited agreement to build the Fehmarn Belt Bridge, which will link the two nations across the Baltic Sea. At present, the crossing has to be made by ferry.

The agreement came after a long period of obstruction on the German side, which even lasted into the final round of talks in Berlin. The German resistance was linked to the government's hesitancy to provide state credit for the project. The two sides finally agreed to "share" the costs of the project: 85%, or 4.8 billion euros, will be covered by Denmark, the remaining 15%, or 800 million, by Germany. The bridge will, therefore, be a "Danish bridge," after completion by 2018.

Details of the agreement still have to be negotiated. The Christian Democrats in the state parliament of Schleswig-Holstein, the German terminus of the bridge, wholeheartedly welcomed the deal, calling it the "most important infrastructure link between the continent and Scandinavia in the past 50 years."

The Fehmarn Belt Bridge project has been the subject of a major campaign by the LaRouche Movement in Denmark and Germany for approximately a year. The Danish Schiller Institute began it by circulating literature advocating a national maglev system, to be connected to Germany via the bridge, as well as within the country. Several demonstrations have been held in both Denmark and Berlin in favor of the bridge construction, in addition to lobbying in the parliaments.