Source: https://www.railfreight.com/infrastructure/2025/08/22/no-one-can-pay-for-the-turin-lyon/
“No one can pay for the Turin-Lyon”
Author: Marco Raimondi
22.08.2025 | The construction of a new Turin-Lyon railway has often been considered as a cornerstone of the European shift towards more sustainable mobility, both for freight and passengers. However, it seems that none of the parties involved – Italy, France or the EU, have the financial resources to complete it in 2033 as promised. Rather, there is a very concrete possibility the whole project will not be ready before 2050.
The recent publication of the Implementing Decision by the European Commission placed the spotlight on the Turin-Lyon project once again. According to TELT, the entity in charge of the project, this meant easier access to European funds, but others beg to differ. Alberto Poggio, member of the Turin-Lyon technical committee, pointed out that these developments on paper do not match reality.
The Implementing Decision
The Implementing Decision “does not contain any allocation of additional and/or supplementary European funding beyond what has already been allocated to date. Nor does it provide for any commitment regarding future European funding, referring instead to future ‘investment planning in different budget cycles at both national and Union level’”, Poggio explained.
Additionally, the Implementing Decision does not include any binding point when it comes to cooperation between France and Italy, which do not have to coordinate anything especially when it comes to the access routes. To add insult to injury, there does not seem to be any framework for what happens if the project is not completed. Other than possibly paying penalty fees for already assigned tenders, the two countries could abandon the project without any real repercussions.
Here is an overview of the costs and the funds actually allocated for the Turin-Lyon:
- Total needed – 28.6 billion euros
- Base Tunnel – 16.1 billion
- Italian access routes – 3.2 billion
- French access routes – 8.6 billion
Money allocated for Base Tunnel:
- CEF funds – 1.9 billion
- Italy – 5.6 billion (until 2033)
- France – less than 2 billion (updated year by year)
Money allocated to access routes:
- Italy – 0.9 billion
- France (Dijon line) – 0.7 billion
European struggles
The EU has allocated 1,9 billion euros since 2001 through the four last cycles of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), only accounting for 12% of the total expenditure for the Turin-Lyon. Even with the upcoming CEF package for the 2028-2034 period, there will not be enough money to complete the project in time, Poggio stressed.
In a realistic scenario, the Turin-Lyon will get somewhere between one and two billion euros from this CEF round, while it needs more than six.
Thus, it will be necessary to wait for not one but two more CEF packages (2035-2042 and 2043-2050) before the necessary funds are available. And even in this case, Europe would need to commit much more resources to the Turin-Lyon than it traditionally has, which is quite unlikely, according to Poggio.
French lack of interest
When it comes to France, there are two issues: financial uncertainty and an open lack of interest in creating new access routes connecting the tunnel to Lyon. The financial frailty comes from the way projects are funded in the country. After a public project is approved, France does not have to allocate resources for the future. In other words, a decision on how much money will be spent is made every year, depriving the project of multi-annual stability.
On top of this, the issue of the access routes has been persistent for the past few years. Initially, the idea was to build a brand new railway connecting Lyon with St. Jean de Maurienne, where the French entrance to the Base Tunnel will be. However, the country does not treat this initiative as a priority. For the French, the main access route to the tunnel will be the already existing line running to Dijon, at least for the first decade after the planned opening of the Base Tunnel.
Italy risking the most
The last player involved is Italy, which so far has contributed the most to the construction of the Base Tunnel, approving 5,6 billion euros to be spent by 2033. However, as Poggio highlighted, this might pose an important risk for Italy. The money advanced by Italy are also used to partially cover French expenses, since they are established year by year.
In other words, Italy is the only of the three parties involved that is providing TELT with financial guarantees. If the project goes belly up, which is not something that can be entirely excluded, the Belpaese will be left with a heavy financial burden which will be very difficult to bear.
Concerning Italian access routes to the Base Tunnel, between Susa and Turin, financial resources are lacking and some of the planned projects leave experts baffled. For example, the initiative entails the construction of a new second route between Avigliana, near the entrance to the tunnel, and Orbassano, right outside of Turin, the utility of which has been questioned.
Does rail freight need it?
The realisation of the Turin-Lyon link has been advertised as a game-changer for the rail freight industry, but is that actually the case? The current line can accommodate most traffic and, anyway, it remains largely underused, only one-seventh of its capacity according to Poggio. Implementing a massive project like the new line should happen only when the current infrastructure is used at 50% of its capacity at least, he argued. Even the idea that it would favour combined transport might be far-fetched.
It is true that the Base Tunnel would facilitate this modality, but demand for it and financial viability are an issue. A combined transport service between France and Italy along the existing axis was just discontinued because it was unable to survive without public subsidies, which both France and Italy interrupted. An idea, according to Poggio, would be to incentivise rail freight along the current Frejus route to increase demand and then build the new tunnel once there is a concrete need for it.