While Europe finances the cross-border section of the new Turin–Lyon railway, including the Mont Cenis base tunnel, with considerable willingness in principle but only a trickle of funding in practice, the list of routes that could potentially qualify for EU financial support is expanding. Mathieu Grosch, the Belgian European Coordinator for the Mediterranean Corridor, has announced that the European Commission, through its Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE), has given the green light to include the Genoa–Ventimiglia railway corridor among Brussels’ infrastructure priorities. This is a significant development because, until now, the Mediterranean Corridor has followed a route running across the Iberian Peninsula to Lyon in France, then on to Turin and across the Po Valley. Genoa and its ports are also included in the TEN-T network, but only as the southern terminus of the Rhine–Alpine Corridor, which runs from northern Europe. Apart from passenger services, the European map of priority transport routes has never identified a railway connection between Genoa, Ventimiglia and Marseille, despite its role as a vital link in trade between Italy and southern France.
However, the prospects for the Genoa–Ventimiglia line could now change, although securing its place among the European corridors will depend on the forthcoming revision of the EU corridor work plans, scheduled for 2027. It was during Connecting Europe Days 2026, held from 28 September to 1 October, that the Liguria Region, together with the French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Occitanie and Spain’s Catalonia, secured this commitment from the EU, with the support of European Coordinator Mathieu Grosch.
Despite its importance as a major transport link, including for cross-border traffic, the Genoa–Ventimiglia railway still has a single-track section following the original nineteenth-century alignment between Finale Ligure and Andora, apart from a partial, selective doubling between Loano and Albenga. The nearly 150 kilometres of railway between Genoa and Ventimiglia, originally built as a single-track line in the nineteenth century, have been doubled in stages, providing a far from positive example of how some public infrastructure projects have been carried out in Italy. The upgrading programme, which remains incomplete, has stretched over almost a century, from the Ventimiglia–Bordighera section, upgraded as far back as 1925, to the San Lorenzo–Andora section, completed only in 2016. The main reason for this prolonged process has been the difficulty of securing sufficient funding over the years.
Construction work has therefore yet to begin on around 30 kilometres between Finale Ligure and Andora. Inclusion in the European TEN-T corridors could accelerate the project, partly through EU financial support, although the process of securing that funding has yet to be established. The authorisation process for the project developed by Italian infrastructure manager RFI is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, with the ministry’s environmental impact assessment decision and the opinion of the Conference of Services. Following Connecting Europe Days, Europe appears willing to support this new investment, but given the overall resources available for EU infrastructure projects, the financial details will have to be worked out at a later stage.
Piermario Curti Sacchi
