The Oresund bridge from imagination to innovation*

Francesco Zavatti

Abstract: After its inauguration in 2000, the Oresund bridge has allowed major mobility and
flow of manpower, goods, and services between Sweden and Denmark. Was this the vision that
Danes and Swedes have imagined over the past century and a half, when thinking of a bridge
over the Sound? And, if so, why did it take more than one hundred years in order to start the
construction of the Øresundsförbindelsen? The aim of this article is to inquire how linking the
two shores of the Sound, from being in the nineteenth century an idea of literates and politi-
cians, was progressively filtered through a system of innovation to which actors and suprain-
dividual social structures contributed. The study examines the political and economic ideas of
the actors that have imagined the consequences of linking the two shores of the Sound: entre-
preneurs, politicians, engineers, intellectuals, Swedish and Danish institutions, and the bilateral
commissions. Contextualizing the idea of the link in the Swedish and Danish political history,
the study offers an understanding of why the Oresund bridge has been finalized only at the end
of the twentieth century. The study is based on published and unpublished sources conserved
in several Swedish and Danish archives and libraries.

Keywords: Oresund bridge; Imagination; System of innovation; Scandinavia; Cooperation.

Uniting the Danish island of Amager in Zealand with Scania in Sweden, the Oresund
bridge (Øresundsbron1) is the longest combined rail- and road-bridge in Europe,
developed on two levels. It comprises a 16 km long double-track railway and a four
lane motorway running on a 7.8 km long three-section cable-stayed bridge from
Malmö up to a height of 57 metres over the Flintrännan channel to the 4 km long
artificial island of Peberholm, constructed from material dredged from the seabed.
Peberholm connects the bridge to a 4 km immersed tunnel, the Drøgen tunnel,
ending in a 1 km long peninsula on the coast of Copenhagen.
In 1993 Øresundskonsortiet, a joint venture between the state companies Svedab
(Sweden) and A/S Øresundsforbindelsen (Denmark), after an international design
competition, choose the two-level bridge designed by Danish architect Georg Rotne
for ASO Group, a joint venture between private firms from Britain, France, and
Denmark, formed to design the bridge concept and for monitoring the construction
work. In 1995, the construction work bid was won by Sundlink Contractors HB, a

*  This research has been supported by the generous financial contribution of the Fund for
Swedish-Danish Cooperation (Fondet for Dansk-Svensk Samarbejde). I wish to express my gra-
titude to Marco De Nicolò and Fulvio Conti for the support and to Rolf Petri and Paolo Borioni
for the feedback.
1  The name is the result of the Danish Øresund (Oresund) and the Swedish bron (bridge). It

is also called Øresundsforbindelsen/Öresundsförbindelsen.

Memoria e Ricerca, vol. 55, 2/2017 © Società editrice il Mulino

pp. 313-330 ISSN 1127-0195
314 Francesco Zavatti

Swedish-German-Danish joint venture consisting of Skanska, Hochtief, Monberg

& Thorsen, and Højgaard & Schultz2. It is estimated that the costs for the link’s
construction, covered by a 4 billion euro loan from the Danish and Swedish states
to the owner of the bridge – the Øresundskonsortiet – will be completely repaid by
2040 thanks to the fees levied for crossing the bridge.
Its opening in 2000 impacted the region profoundly. Since the one-hour-long
crossing of the Sound has been reduced to a ten minute ride, the link has allowed
major mobility and flow of manpower, goods, and services on the two sides of the
bridge. Was this the vision that Danes and Swedes have imagined over the past
century and a half, when thinking of a bridge over the Sound? And, if so, why
did it take more than one hundred years in order to start the construction of the
Øresundsförbindelsen?
Previous research on the history of this link underestimates the impact that the
historical context had in shaping this idea for more than a century. This enquiry is
an account of how linking the two shores of the Sound, from being initially an idea
of literates and politicians3, was progressively filtered through a system of innova-
tion to which actors and supraindividual social structures contributed4. Innovation
is a narrative whose system includes science, technology, and innovation policies5.
Second, innovation is an interactive process6 which is socially, politically, culturally,
and geographically7 mediated at a crossroads of markets, governments, and societal
actors, being not exempt from social situations and cultural contexts8. Therefore,
the pre-history of the Øresundsförbindelsen is a history of how the idea of an in-
frastructure has been imagined, developed, evaluated, rejected several times, and
finally realized.
The study is based on published and unpublished sources conserved in the
archives of the Swedish Royal Archives (Marieberg and Arninge), Lund Regional
Archives, Malmö City Archive, Dragør Local Archive (Denmark), and in the collec-
tions of the Swedish Royal Library and the Danish Royal Library.

2  K. False-Hansen, Ö. Larsson, The Øresund Bridge, in «IABSE Report», vol. 82, 1999, pp.

22-23.
3  J.J. Wunenburg, L’imaginaire, PUF, Que sais-je?, 1993 (2nd ed.), p. 3. L. Boia. Pentru o

istorie a imaginarului, Bucharest, Humanitas, 2000, p. 26.

4  P. Brey, Theorizing Modernity and Technology, in Modernity and Technology, edited by T.J.

Misa, P. Brey, A. Feenberg, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 2003, pp. 33-72, p. 59.
5  B.Å. Lundvall, S. Borrás, Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy, in The Oxford Hand-

book of Innovation, edited by J. Fegerberg, D.C. Mowery, Oxford, University of Oxford, 2006,
pp. 600-626.
6  B.Ä. Lundvall, B. Johnson, The Learning Economy, in «Journal of Industry Studies», vol. 1,

n. 2, 1994, pp. 23-42; p. 28.

7  E.J. Malecki, Everywhere? The geography of knowledge, in «Journal of Regional Science»,

vol. 50, n. 1, 2010, pp. 493-513; p. 498.

8  D.N. Livingstone, Putting science in its place, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003,

pp. 87-89; pp. 179-185.

The Øresund bridge from imagination to innovation 315

1. A dream of unity

In pre-modern times, the Sound was a geographical border which divided the Scan-
dinavian peninsula from the island of Sjælland, both belonging to the Kingdom
of Denmark. After the Second Northern War, with the Treaty of Roskilde (1658)
and the Treaty of Copenhagen (1660), Sweden obtained the region of Skåne from
Denmark and the Oresund Straight became the border between Sweden and Den-
mark. The constant state of war between countries made necessary the creation of
borders and the search for internal stability. Once the Peace of Kiel was signed in
1814, reconciliation and the cultivation of fraternal relations between peoples be-
came a distinctive feature of modern Scandinavia9. At the same time, technological
and entrepreneurial innovations had made the world across the Sound smaller: just
one year before, the Danish passengers’ steamboat Caledonia had started its regular
trips from Copenhagen to Malmö10. The Scandinavianists attached a political sig-
nificance to the crossing of the Sound, as demonstrated by the torchlight procession
organized by the students of Lund and Copenhagen across the frozen Sound in
the winter of 183811, and by the use of steamboats for reaching pan-Scandinavian
gatherings12.
The technological innovations favored the dream of spiritual unity: the first
physical connection across the Sound was the telegraph underwater cable between
Hildesborg (Sweden) and Vedbæk (Denmark), built in 185413. In 1858, the Scan-
dinavianist Oscar Patrick Sturzen-Becker, in a description of the infrastructural de-
velopment of the Sound published on «Aftonbladet», wrote that «in one hundred
years […], a wonderful tunnel under the Sound, with a big ventilation pipe straight
up to Saltholm’ would have been realized»14. The political will to overcome borders
and the technological progresses allowed Sturzen-Becker to image such project as
possible.
The gap between imagining an infrastructural innovation and proposing a pro-
ject lasted less than two decades. Between the 1850s and the 1870s, the Swedish and
the Danish state invested in scientific education, and specifically in civil engineering
education, in order to create state institutions for the building and maintenance of
infrastructures run by professionals15. In 1865, Swedish engineer Claes Adelsköld

9  H. Becker-Christensen, The idea of Scandinavianism, in The Cambridge History of Scandina-

via, vol. II, 1520-1870, edited by E.I. Kouri, J.E. Olesen, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
2016, pp. 928-933.
10  M. Andersson, När Caledonia lade till i Malmö, in «Sydsvenskan», 20 january 2016.
11  H. Becker-Christensen, cit., p. 929.
12  J. Harvard, M. Hillström, Media Scandinavianism, in Communicating the North, edited by

J. Harvard, P. Stadius, Farnham, Ashgate, 2013, pp. 75-98.

13  M. Marcus. Telegrafverket, Stockholm, Tiden, 1925, pp. 7-8. J. Harvard, Connecting the

Nordic Region, in J. Harvard, P. Stadius, cit., pp. 47-74; p. 50.

14  O.P. Sturzen-Becker, Kurir från Sundet, in «Aftonbladet», 26 june 1858, p. 3.
15  H. Harnow, The Role of the Engineer in Danish Modernisation, 1850-1920, in «Scandi-

navian Economic History Review», vol. 45, 1997, pp. 224-243. J. Rosén, Th. Westrin, Nordisk
Familjebok, Iduns, Stockholm, 1898, p. 1569.
316 Francesco Zavatti

discussed with Karl XV of Sweden the possibility of building a train tunnel under
the Sound, but with no result16 because of the recent German threat to invade Den-
mark17 and since Zealand had no fixed connection with the continent18.
In the 1870s, political measures for the union of Scandinavia (the monetary un-
ion – 1873), new technologies (i.e., dynamite) and new infrastructural projects (the
Stockholm Central Station – 1871)19 provided the setting in which, in 1872, Danish
wholesaler C.F.W. Petersen and English engineer S. Edwards proposed building an
Elsinore-Helsingborg railway tunnel20 which promised easier communication with
the continent, barrier-free trade, and easier troop transport in case of a war in which
the Scandinavian countries were allied (sic)21. The project was rejected in 187322,
since ships were considered a better solution23.
Another proposal came in 1886, in a context of vertiginous industrial and tech-
nological development of the two countries24 originated by the technological in-
novation introduced by investors and entrepreneurs in export-oriented sectors25.
The investment in infrastructures was a precondition to industrial development and
competitiveness in international trade26. Social change came as a consequence: in
the 1870s, the social democratic parties made their first steps in Malmö and Co-
penhagen27. The idea to connect the countries with railroads, tunnels, and bridges
was part of several state systems of innovation which had chosen the same path of
industrialization and internationalization, which are constituents of Saint-Simon’s
political project to unite Europe28.
In 1886, French deputy (and presumed Saint-Simonian) François Deloncle
asked a French syndicate in Paris for the concession to build a railway tunnel be-
tween the harbours of Dragør and Limhamn29. On behalf of Deloncle, M. Alexan-
dre de Rothe, a French engineer which had worked at the Panama Canal, proposed
to the two parliaments a railway tunnel from Amager to the Swedish coast through

16  M. Idvall, Kartors kraft. Regionen som samhällsvision i Öresundsbrons tid, Lund, Nordic

Academic Press, 2000, p. 308.

17  En tunnel, in «Kalmar», 8 april 1865, p. 2.
18 H.S., Sprogö, in «Aftonbladet», 3 march 1870, p. 3.
19  «Stockholms Tekniska Historia», vol. 1, ed. by A. Dufwa, Stockholm, Liber Förlag, 1985,

p. 35.
20  Jernbanetunneln under Öresund, in «Borås Tidning», 15 february 1873, p. 2.
21  Tunnel under Öresund, in «Aftonbladet», 19 june 1872, p. 3.
22  Svensk författningssamling 1874, p. 19.
23  Ytterligare om tunneln under Öresund, in «Barometern», 17 october 1874, p. 1.
24  L. Schön, Sweden – Economic Growth and Structural Change, 1800-2000, in EH.Net En-

cyclopedia, edited by R. Whaples, 10 february 2008.

25  B.Å. Lundvall, Comparing the Danish and Swedish Systems of Innovation, in National In-

novation Systems, edited by R.B. Nelson, Oxford, Oxford University Press,1993, pp. 265-298.
26  L. Magnusson, An Ecomomic History of Sweden, London, Routledge, 2003, p. 171.
27  N. Brandal, Ø. Bratberg, D. Thorsen. The Nordic Model of Social Democracy, Basingstocke,

Pelgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 11, 27-28.

28  G. Peebles, The Euro and its rivals, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2011, pp. 25-

26, p. 188.
29 M. Idvall, cit., p. 42; A. Olshov, Øresundsregionen, Copenhagen, Gyldendal Business,

2013, pp. 209.

The Øresund bridge from imagination to innovation 317

Saltholm. After initial interest from the Danish government30, the Danish-Swedish
commission rejected it, asking for a traffic forecast and evidence of economic af-
fordability31. Even if resubmitted, the project was ultimately rejected in December
1888 by the two parliaments32, which in 1892 instituted steam ferry boats lines for
the transport of railway wagons33 between Elsinore and Helsingborg34.
Since the Bessemer and Siemens-Martin processes established the production of
high quality steel required for bridges, a bridge over the Sound became imaginable:
in 1888, writer Wilhelm Dinesen proposed to create a bridge between Elsinore and
Helsingborg: it «would represent the Swedish and Danish spirit of entrepreneur-
ship (företagsamhetsanda) gathered»35. Another project, for an iron railway tunnel
placed on the bottom of the sea36, was proposed by Johan Rudolf Lilljeqvist but
rejected because of its excessive costs37.

2. Imagining new international routes

The Öresund, the Little Belt, and the Great Belt are the only three points which
separate Scandinavia from the continent. This map was unimaginable for the Swed-
ish Railway engineers in the second half of the nineteenth century, since the main
route of communication between Sweden and continental Europe since 1865 had
been the ferry routes Malmö-Stralsund and Trelleborg-Sassnitz38. In 1896, the first
proposal to build a bridge over the Little Belt changed the mental maps and opened
new roads to the imagination39. Nevertheless, the high costs involved prevented the
drafting of solutions for fixing the three points in the same project. For example,
in 1908, Danish engineer Heinrich Ohrt drafted in a Danish Industrial journal a
project for a railway tunnel under the Great Belt, between Korsör and Nyberg40. In
1909, captain of the Swedish Construction Service Corps, Albert Johan Qvistgård

30  G.D. Burtchaell, The Family of Rothe of Kilkenny, in «The Journal of the Royal Historical

and Archaeological Association of Ireland», vol. 67, n. 7, 1886, pp. 501-537, p. 525. Denmark and
Sweden (Sound) Tunnel, in Hazell’s Annual Encyclopedia, London, Hazel, 1887, p. 173.
31  Öresundstunneln afstyrkt af komitén, in «Wenersborgs stad och län», 4 november 1886,

p. 2.
32  Öresundstunnelfrågan, in «Tidning för Wenersbrog stad och län», 13 december 1886, p. 3;

M. Idvall, cit., p. 47.

33  C.A. Nordenson, Ångfärjeförbindelsen Malmö-Köpenhamn, in Statens Järnvägr 1856-1906,

vol. III, edited by Gustav Welin, Centratryckeriet, Stockholm, 1906, pp. 339-352.
34  A. F., Dampfærgelinien Kjøbenhavn-Malmø, in «Ingeniøren», vol. 18, 29 october 1892, p.

69-70.
35  W. Dinesen, En bro mellan Helsingör och Helsingborg, in «Dalpilen», 21 september 1888,

p. 2.
36  M. Idvall, cit., p. 43.
37  A. Hannover, Dædalus, in «Ingeniøren», vol. 43, 17 july 1937, p. 116.
38  C.A. Nordenson, cit., p. 339.
39  En bro öfver Lilla Bält, in «Östergötlands Veckoblad», 26 june 1896, p. 3.
40  A. Hannover, cit., p. 116. En tunnel under Stora Bält, in «Kalmar», 24 january 1908, p. 3.
318 Francesco Zavatti

drafted in the Swedish Railway News (Järnbanebladet) two options for building
a railway tunnel under the Sound41: a tunnel Elsinore-Helsingborg («H-H»), or
a double tunnel between Malmö-Saltholm-Copenhagen («K-S-M»)42. The project
had no success, but the press considered it as an opportunity for strengthening
Swedish and Danish international competition by shifting the axis away from the
Sweden–Belin traffic, which was linked by the ferry line Trelleborg-Sassnitz through
Copenhagen43. In 1912, Ohrt and Qvistgård re-drafted together the project for a
K-M railway tunnel, which was stopped by the lack of the necessary capital. After
the war, the Swedish parliament revoked the concession44.
The inauguration of the Little Belt Bridge in 1935 allowed the engineers to focus
on the Great Belt and the Oresund. The Danish Social-Democratic Party expressed
favorable opinion towards the building of the H-H-bridge since it could create
work45. Nevertheless, the general director of the Swedish Railways, Alex Granholm,
considered the project too expensive, difficult to build, and not needed since ex-
ports and passengers could transit through the Trelleborg-Sassnitz line46.
Against the Trelleborg-Sassnitz line, Gustaf Evers and Ture Norder, two gradu-
ating engineers at Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, presented in 1935 a
project for a two car lane H-H bridge which assessed Denmark as the natural transit
for Scandinavian traffic47. Nevertheless, a proposal that included the two «missing
links» of Scandinavia with the continent was drafted only the next year.

3. The militarized boarder and the willing engineers

In march 1936, a consortium of three Swedish and three Danish firms proposed a
system of highways and bridges over the Great Belt and the Sound to connect «the
continent and Scandinavia»48, According to Rudolf Christiani, director of the con-
sortium, the project would have provided «a fixed and direct link from Happaranda
to Rome»49. A Danish commission reviewed the proposal which was presented as «a
local link […] part of the international links»50.

41 
Ett storslaget svenskt projekt, in «Vestkusten», vol. 36, 9 september 1909, p. 1.
42 
S. Winkel, Tunnel under Øresund, in «Ingeniøren», vol. 23, 5 june 1909, pp. 202-203.
43  Hj. Cassel, Tunnel under Öresund, in «SvD», 8 january 1910, p. 8.
44  Öresundstunneln blir ännu ej av, in «SvD», 1 february 1919, p. 11.
45 Socialdemokraterne, I Kamp mod Krisen, Copenhagen, 1934, pp. 6, 9-10.
46  Öresundsbron gör sig åter påmint, in «SvD», 8 may 1934, p. 8.
47  G. Evers, T. Norden, Förslag till bro över Öresund för landsvägs- och järnvägstrafik mellan

Hälsingborg och Helosingör, Norrköping, Norrköpings Tidningars AB, 1935, pp. 1-4.
48  The six firms were Armerad Betong, Byggnads AB Contractor, Skånska Cementjuteriet,

Christiani & Nielsen, Højgaard & Schultz, Kampmann Kierulff & Saxild: Förslag till bro över
Öresund mellan Malmö och Köpenhamn, Norrköping, Norrköpings Tidningars AB, 1936, p. 3.
49  Gedserruten kan ersättas med Femernsbro, in «SvD», 12 September 1936, p. 9.
50  Motorveje med broer over Storebælt og Øresund. Supplerende bemærkninger, Copenhagen,

1937, pp. 42-45.

The Øresund bridge from imagination to innovation 319

In Denmark, the project was supported by the state51, while in Sweden it was
welcomed with skepticism: since the main export sector of the Danish economy was
agricultural goods, which Sweden had in overproduction, the Swedish Car Associ-
ation considered the bridge useful only to car traffic, if the Great Belt bridge were
built in advance52. Christiani revised the proposal, drafting a highway-only bridge53,
but Granholm considered that the Trelleborg-Sassnitz route continued to be the
best choice for Swedish trade54.
The Swedish Social-Democrat government choose precaution in international
affairs55, knowing that Denmark needed to keep its good relations with Germany56
and that Christiani was one of the major German highway constructor57 with a
position of privilege in his economic relation with Germany58. On the other hand,
Sweden was one of the main commercial partners of Germany as well59.
The fear of territorial violation prevailed in 1935, after the Italian invasion of
Ethiopia. The works of the Nordic Cooperation Committee made clear that a com-
mon defense of the Nordic countries – and particularly of the Southern border
of Denmark – was impossible60. In Sweden, homeland defence became militarily
relevant61 and the defense of the boarders with it: in 1938 the Skånelinjen, a system
of more than thousand military fortifications along the coasts of Skåne, started to
be built. In 1939, prime minister Per Albin Hansson declared Sweden neutral. The
Sound had become a militarized border and the Öresund’s link was imagined to be
a bridge to an international context of political instability, and therefore a risk.
With the occupation of Denmark and Norway by Nazi Germany in april 1940,
all communications between Denmark and Sweden were redirected to Germany
through the Trelleborg-Sassnitz route62, which was also the route from which the
German Army was guaranteed passage in Sweden in order to reach the Norwegian
Southern border and the harbour of Narvik in Norway.
Furthermore, the crossing of the Sound during the Second World War is gen-
erally associated with the passage of the Danish Jews escaping persecution and
granted asylum in Sweden. Nevertheless, the engineers of both shores did not give

51  De stora danska proprojekten, in «SvD», 8 june 1936, p. 4.

52  Först Stora-Bältbro, sedan Öresundsbro?, in «SvD», 4 june 1936, p. 24.
53  Motorveje, cit.
54  Öresundsbro ödesdiger för Malmö, in «SvD», 27 september 1937, p. 3, p. 24.
55  M. af Malmborg, Neutrality and state-building in Sweden, London, Ashgate, 2001, pp. 127-

129.
56  P. Salmon, Scandinavia and the Great Powers 1890-1940, Cambridge, Cambridge Universi-

ty Press, 2012, pp. 268-270.

57  S. Andersen, Escape from “Safehaven”, in «Business History», vol. 51, n. 5, 2009, pp. 691-

711, p. 693.
58  S. Andersen, Between imperative and risk, in «Scandinavian Economic History Review»,

vol. 59, n. 1, 2011, pp. 3-28; p. 8.

59  P. Salmon, British-German rivalry in Northern Europe revisited, in Managing Crises and

De-Globalisation, edited by S.O. Olsson, London, Routledge, 2012, pp. 11-12.

60  A.W. Johansson, Per Albin och Kriget, Stockholm, Prisma, 2003, p. 42.
61  Af Malmborg, cit., p. 133. See, i.e., SOU 57, 1936.
62  Åter post till Danmark, in «SvD», 21 april 1940, p. 4.
320 Francesco Zavatti

up presenting projects for a fixed link to Nazi-occupied Denmark. In 1941, N. J.

Manniche proposed, for the Danish firm Manniche & Hartmann and the Swedish
firm Asa, a K-S-M railway and highway tunnel. In Manniche’s proposal, the idea of a
link was connected with the development of tourism. The island of Saltholm would
have become a «summer Eldorado»63 provided with train station, parking, hotels,
bath facilities, a natural reserve, and, in the tunnel’s ventilation towers, restaurants,
and sun-terraces over the sea. The vulnerability to bombardments, according to
Manniche, was a risk one had to take64. However, the Swedish government was not
convinced and put the proposal on hold65.

4. A European communication network, 1947-1954

In the second half of the century, the Oresund link was transformed from a project
planned and proposed by the engineers to an international project of which the
states were the main proponents and planners. After the war, Sweden and Denmark
were in different geopolitical and economical situations. While the growth perfor-
mance of Denmark was below the European average66, the Swedish government
prevented depression with heavy interventions and regulations, a recipe that in the
1950s made by the economy grow quicker than in other European countries67. At
the geopolitical level, after the failure of the project of a Scandinavian defense un-
ion, only Denmark joined Nato in 1949. The customs union and the common mar-
ket ideas were put on hold. Nevertheless, the Social Democrats leading the two
countries, in order to fuel growth, joined the international cooperation which was
flourishing under the American, European, and Nordic leadership.
In the early fifties, the United Nations and the seminal European cooperation
started to produce their first visions. These international institutions were headed
also by Scandinavians, which included the region in continental integration. For
example, Gunnar Myrdal was the first general secretary of the Economic Commis-
sion of Europe. His main goal was to ensure the effective participation of all the
European countries in the project of integration in the face of the rising East-West
divide. The Dane Kaj Bang, the general director of the Danish Directorate of Public
Works who embodied the state control imposed by the Social Democrats’ govern-
ment over the powerful lobby of the Danish engineers68, headed the economy and

63  N. J. Manniche, Øresundstunnelen, in «Ingeniøren», vol. 21, 1941, p. 3.

64  Är Öresundstunnel såbar för bomber, in «SvD», 23 april 1941, p. 15.
65  Tunnelprojektet ännu ej aktuellt, in «SvD», 26 september 1944, p. 8.
66 I. Henriksen, An Economic History of Denmark, in EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by R.

Whaples, 6 october, 2006.

67  L. Magnusson, cit., p. 200.
68  F. Schipper, Driving Europe, Amsterdam, Aksant, 2008, pp. 168-169, p. 193; K. Boge, Votes

Counts but the Number of Seats Decides, Dissertation, Oslo, BI Norwegian School Management,
2006, p. 81.
The Øresund bridge from imagination to innovation 321

traffic experts of the Working Party on Highways, created by the Inland Transport
Committee in Genève in 1947.
In 1950, the Working Party submitted to the United Nations the final version
of the Declaration on the Construction of Main International Traffic Arteries, which
had been drafted considering road traffic as the main paradigm (imported from
Yale University) by which building and managing infrastructures69. The Declaration
contained the plan for the European Road 4 (E4 from Lisbone to Helsinki) which
included the Fehmarn-Rødby direct link but still maintained the ferry from Elsinore
to Helsingborg.
Sweden signed the Declaration in 1952 and two parliamentary decisions al-
lowed the start of the preliminary research on the possibility of building a link with
Denmark70. The decision, not executive71, became relevant when the first Nordic
Council in 1953 recommended the building of a direct link between Sweden and
Denmark72. In february 1954, the two governments established a common propos-
al73 which was ratified by the two parliaments in march 1954. Each state instituted a
committee of experts composed by the directors of the railways’ and roads’ depart-
ments and by groups of experts on technical and traffic-economic issues74.
The two committees worked for years in strict isolation, between pressure from
the projects’ proponents and competition between the coastal cities. In 1952, Chris-
tiani & Nielsen once again presented their 1936 proposal75, in competition with a
similar project drafted by the German firm Krupp76. Ruben Rausing, founder of
Tetra Pak, proposed to create two soil barriers between Malmö and Copenhagen
and between Helsingborg and Elsinore, in order to dry out the Sound and obtain
new land77. The cities of the Sound, imagining that the city which succeeded to
obtain the link would have been the core of the future Örestad, a city developed
«like the Flanders or the Ruhr, but much more beautiful»78, publicly displayed their
interest and had local experts’ assessments79 and local newspapers’ propaganda in
favour of their cause80.
Erik Upmark, general director of the Swedish Railways and member of the Com-
mission81, in need of avoiding a budget loss for the Railways, expressed the opinion
that a K-M bridge was too expensive, and was instead favorable towards a H-H

69  P. Blomkvist, Roads for flow - Roads for peace, in Networking Europe, edited by E. van der

Vleuten, A. Kaijser, Sagamore Beach, Science History Publications, 2006, pp. 161-186.
70 Ørsundsudvalget, Øresundsforbindelsen 1.Del. Betænkning nr. 314, 1962, p. 11.
71  Bro eller tunnel över Sundet, in «SvD», 11 december 1952, p. 22.
72  Snabbt beslut om Öresundsbron, in «Skånska Dagbladet», 9 february 1954.
73  Svensk-danska expertkommittéer, in «Skånska Dagbladet», 9 february 1954.
74  Riksarkivet (RA) Arninge, 1952 års Öresundsdelegation, A1, 1-2.
75  Ibid., Ö1, 70: Överarbetat förslag till bro över Öresund mellan Malmö och Köpenhamn, 1952.
76  Ibid., Ö1, 72: Öresundsbro Hälsingborg-Helsingör, 1954.
77  Fantastisk idé – torrlägga Öresund, in «SvD», 26 march 1953, p. 7.
78  Öresundsområdet ett Ruhr, in «Helsingborgs Dagbladet», 1 december 1959.
79  RA Arninge, 1952 års Öresundsdelegation, A2: Landskrona, 1 october 1959.
80  Sydliga Brofantasier, in «Helsingborgs Dagblad», 6 march 1959.
81  J.J. Richardson, Policy Making and Rationality in Sweden, in «British Journal of Political

Science», vol. 9, n. 3, june 1979, pp. 341-353; pp. 344-345.

322 Francesco Zavatti

combined bridge, since it was the best alternative for the Swedish railways82, Faced
with an uncertain traffic prognosis of the H-H combined bridge recommended by
the commission in 1962’s conclusions83, the conclusions were reviewed in 1967,
indicating the M-K link as the best solution. Nevertheless, upon insistence by Up-
mark84, in 1969 the Swedish and Danish Railways presented their separate H-H
railway tunnel project, which was decoupled from the main project of the Oresund
bridge by a decision of the two parliaments85.

5. The bridge at the end of the Nordic Model

In 1973, the two social democratic governments signed an agreement for building
the H-H railway tunnel and the K-M motorway bridge86. In those years, the Nordic
model was in crisis, contested in Sweden by a «red wave» of anti-capitalist hard
confrontation and by a «green wave» concerned over nuclear power and critical
towards the business community87, and by the rise of populism in Denmark. One
of the outcomes of this crisis was a robust opposition to the link over the Sound.
Thornbjörn Fälldin, leader of the Centre Party, succeeded from 1973 up until
the early eighties in presenting himself as champion of environmental defence and
decentralization88. For Fälldin, the bridge was «a monument of a past epoch»89.
Winning the consensus of the «green wave», Fälldin brought the Centrepartiet to
25% in the 1973 elections, and promised to stop a project that was an «environ-
mental inferno of cars, gases, and asphalt»90. Nevertheless, his attempt to stop the
parliamentary ratification failed91.
On the Danish side of the Sound, similar societal anxieties were present. The
1973 «earthquake election» (Jordskredsvalget) took power away from the tradition-
al parties, redistributing the votes among new or previously unrepresented parties,
among which the populist party (Fremskridspartiet) was in favor of a drastic reduc-
tion of state expenses. This political change brought indecision on the 1973 agree-
ment. After a fire-debate in the Danish parliament, the agreement was approved

82 
Hälsingborgsalternativ, in «Skånska Dagbladet Hälsingborg», 13 february 1954.
83  SOU:53-54, 1962. Gall, Konsortium vill bygga bro Malmö-Köpenhamn, in «SvD», 21 ja-
nuary 1964, p. 11. SOU 1967: 54, 90.
84  RA Marieberg, 1968 års Öresundsdelegation, 1, S3, 5.
85  Ivi, S15.
86  C. Sturm, Norling efter Karl X Gustav, in «DN», 9 june 1973.
87  C. Agius, cit., p. 122.
88  J. Andersson, Kjell Östberg, Sveriges Historia 1965-2012, Stockholm, Norstedts, 2015, pp.

223-228.
89  Proposition 124:1973, ordförande: Thornbjörn Fälldin, pp. 9-10.
90  Å. Ekdahl, Öresundsplanerna i kras för Norling, in «DN», 19 october 1973, pp. 1, 28.
91  J. Tunberger, Centerledaren befarar att projektet blir ett monument över svunnen epok, in

«SvD», 14 december 1973.

The Øresund bridge from imagination to innovation 323

with a slight majority92. The government delayed the ratification and aired a possi-
ble referendum on the matter93, but a government crisis prevented the ratification
(which would have failed) to take place94.
After the return of the social democrats in Denmark, a new Oresund commis-
sion proposed the K-M link in 1978. The commission assessed the environmen-
tal impact only briefly95, considering it a political matter96. With the victory of the
bourgeois parties in Sweden in the 1976 and 1979 elections, the link was put on
hold. However, the Folkparti government (1978-1979) continued formal talks with
Denmark, which due to the oil crisis put the Great Belt bridge project in stand-by
and decided to expand the airport of Kastrup, making the proposal for Saltholm
Airport collapse97.

6. Selling the bridge: the eighties

Imagination of economic growth by increased connectivity with Europe and its lib-
eral market played a key role in convincing Sweden and Denmark to realize the
Oresund bridge. In the eighties, a powerful force was working for making imagina-
tion come true: the Round Table of European Industrialists (Ert), a group of leading
industrialists whose aim was to favour European economic cooperation98. During
the second half of the eighties, the main focus of the Ert was to create three major
infrastructure projects: the Euro-Route between England and France, a trans-Eu-
ropean network of high-speed trains, and «a plan to fill in the road and rail gaps
between Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Northern Germany»99 – the Scandinavian
Link, a system of bridges, fast trains, and motorways100. In 1983, the Ceo of Volvo
and speaker for Ert, Pehr G. Gyllenhammar, announced that by the year 2000 a
fast Oslo-Paris road would have been realized; the road included the connections
between Helsingborg and Denmark and a bridge over the Great Belt.101 The Euro-
pean Commission adopted102 the Ert’s report Missing Links, which considered the
deficiencies in Europe’s ground transport system as an effective barrier to European

92  Danskt JA till bron, in «Expressen», 20 april 1974.

93  Folkomröstning om broavtal?, in «Sydsvenska Dagbladet», 20 april 1974.
94  H. Widing, Palme gav tidsfrist för brobeslutet, in «Sydsvenska Dagbladet», 7 december 1974.
95  SOU 1978:19; ivi, pp. 288-289.
96  RA Marieberg, 1975 års Öresundsdelegation, 10: Särsklit Yttrande (29 march 1978).
97  E. Lidén, Smalare vägar, nya debbtyper, in «SvD», 7 august 1981, p. 6.
98 www.ert.eu/about-us.
99  The Chairmanship of Pehr Gyllenhammar: www.ert.eu/sites/ert/files/pehr_gyllenhammar_

-_chapter.pdf, pp. 22-23.

100  B. Östlund, Fortsatt kris i byggbranchen, in «SvD», 9 may 1984, p. 36.
101  R. Magnergård, Snabbväg Oslo-Paris år 2000, in «SvD», 15 january 1984, p. 6.
102 European Commission, Press release debate, europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-87-571_

en.htm
324 Francesco Zavatti

economic and social progress and suggested the use of private capital in infrastruc-
ture development in order to remove «cross-border weaknesses»103.
The Working Group for Extended Economic Cooperation in Scandinavia, a
group of influence constituted by the Scandinavian leading firms’ directors, worked
to form the Scandinavian Link joint venture104. The Working Group’s intense ac-
tivity of propaganda and lobbying105 in favor of the project was successful in con-
vincing the prime ministers of both countries106 and the Swedish social democrats
and liberal-conservatives (Moderaterna), which in 1984 created a new Oresund’s
commission107.
In 1986, the fifty-five biggest Scandinavian firms formed the Scandinavian Link
joint venture108 subdivided into four main joint ventures (one for each Scandina-
vian state) composed of a 50-50 participation of state and private firms109. The
Working Group elaborated a wide program of infrastructure projects called «The
Scandinavian Triangle» – a system of roads, tunnels, bridges, and ferries connecting
Oslo, Helsinki, and Copenhagen110. The plan included six projects: the Oresund
link, the Baltic Sea link, a combined railway for goods transport, railway ferries
between Finland and Sweden, and the Gothenburg–Oslo highway (E6) and rail-
way111. In the 1980s, the group for trans-border local cooperation between Scania
and Zealand (Öresunsgruppen) and the Southern Swedish Chamber of Commerce
also considered the link as a means to economic development and integration for
a new cross-border region, the Oresund region, which would have belonged to the
European Community112.
After the construction of the Great Belt Link was approved in 1986, the commis-
sion presented three possible alternatives for the Oresund link, including the K-M
railway which was finally realized113. The social democrat leaders expressed their
support for a link with Europe114. Danish Social Democrats leader Svend Auken
considered that it was the moment to tear down «the Berlin wall in the Sound»115.

103  Roundtable of European Industrialists, Missing Links, Paris, ERT, 1984, p. 1.

104  RA Marieberg, 1984 års Öresundsdelegation, E3-4: Press release (13 december 1984). Ar-
betsgruppen för utvigat ekonomiskt samarbete i Norden, Norden finns, 1985, p. 2.
105  RA Marieberg, 1984 Års Öresundsdelegation, E3-4, 1: Arbejdsprogram, 2-3.
106  L.E. Melldahl, Nu eller aldrig, in «Tidningen Bygg Industri», vol. 29, 1984. B Hbg, Palme

programskriver linken, in «Bohuslänningen», 5 march 1985.

107  J. Ohlsson, Riksdagsmajoritetet för en Öresundsbro, in «SvD», 13 january 1982, p. 7.
108 ScanLink, Transport 1988-2000. Sammanfattning, Copenhagen, Scanlink, 1987, p. 9.
109  Norden finns, p. 13.
110 ScanLink, Fremtidens godstransport system Norden-Kontinentet (2. Reviderede udgave),

Scanlink, Copenhagen, 1987, p. 9.

111 ScanLink, Årsrapport 1989, Copenhagen, Scanlink, 1990, p. 2.
112  Å.E. Andersson, Sydsvensk framtid, Sydsvenska Handelskammaren, 1989; Lunds Land-

sarkivet, Öresundsgruppen, A:1: NÄRP’s Styringsgruppe for Øresundsprojektet, 3-12-1980, 8.

113  L. Mogensen, Tunneln billigast men också dyrast, in «Sydsvenska Dagbladet», 20 february

1989.
114  C.G. Kjellander, S säger ja till bron, in «DN», 21 april 1990.
115  M.I. Andersson, Danskarna sade ja, in «Statsanställd», 1991, pp. 10-15; p. 10.
The Øresund bridge from imagination to innovation 325

The Ert succeeded in selling the bridge to Sweden and Denmark as an opportu-
nity to create investments and potentiate the economy by bringing the two countries
to the centre of European economic life. The Ert had succeeded in its goal of setting
the Link as a political highlight of the state actors since it could articulate ideas and
interests of an emergent European transnational business class into a coherent and
long-term strategy with no governance problems116. In 1991, the Danish and Swed-
ish parliaments approved the decision to build the Oresund bridge.

7. The Oresund region bridge

The end of the Cold War and the pressing economic situation convinced the Swed-
ish Social Democrats to apply for European Union membership in 1991117. Con-
sidering Europe as the future of Scandinavia, the Swedish and Danish governments
decided on the 23rd of march 1991 to build a fixed link – a decision approved by
the parliaments in the summer. Between 1991 and 1993, the bridge was unpopular
in Denmark, due to the economic situation. In Sweden, while the majority were
favorable118 to a combined railway and motorway bridge119, their imagination was
polarized within the divisive topic of European Union membership120 and feared
environmental disasters.
After Denmark had rejected the approval of the Maastricht Agreement with
the 1992 referendum, the fear of losing a great economic opportunity became
one of the motivations that stood up for the success of the Swedish 1994 Ee
referendum. In 1994, after several environmental hearings and institutions had
modified the original project, the Swedish parliament ratified the decision to
construct the bridge121.
The European Union stimulated the idea of a cross-border region, by financing
the Interreg, a funding program aimed at stimulating cooperation between regions
in the European Union. Between 1994 and 1999, the European Union financed 139

116  B. van Apeldoorn, The European Round Table of Industrialists: Still a Unique Player?,

in The effectiveness of EU business associations, edited by J. Greenwood, Basingstoke, Palgrave,

2002, pp. 194-206; pp. 196-7.
117  I. Dörfer, Sixty Years of Solitude: Sweden returns to Europe, in «Scandinavia and the New

Europe», vol. 64, n. 4, Fall, 1992, pp. 594-605; p. 604.

118  M. Gilljam, G. Falke­mark, Opinionen i Öresundsbrofrågan in Vägval (SOM-Report), edi-

ted by S. Holmberg, L. Wei­bull, vol. 11, 1994, pp. 27-37; p. 33.

119  O. Findahl, Öresundsbron. Två opinionsfrågor, Stockholm, Sveriges Radio, 1991.
120  A.C. Twaddle, EU or Not EU?, in «Scandinavian Studies», vol. 69, n. 2, Spring 1997, pp.

189-211; pp. 191-195. M. Gilljam, G. Falke­mark, Opinionen i Öresundsbrofrågan in Vägval, cit.,

pp. 27-37; p. 30.
121  N. Håkansson, Kampanj med liten betydelse in Ett knappt ja till EU, edited by M. Gilljam,

S. Holmberg, Stockholm, Nordstedts Juridik, 1996, pp. 62-74; p. 69; Maria Oskarson, Väljarnas
vågskåla, in Ett knappt ja till EU, cit., pp. 124-148.
326 Francesco Zavatti

cross-border projects to the tune of 14 million Euros in the Oresund region122. Those
projects included cross-border cooperation projects like the Oresund work depart-
ment,123 Medicon Valley124, and the cross-national Oresund University. Around
56% of local entrepreneurs were involved in cross-border business activities125. In
1993, local politics instituted the Oresund Committee (Öresundskomiteen), a polit-
ical lobby of regional and local actors aimed at promoting the transnational region
interests at national and European level126. The inhabitants of Scania and Zealand
were unanimously convinced that the bridge would free commuters from the «dic-
tatorship» of the ferries’ time tables, allowing major freedom of movement127.
Hundreds of leaflets and two regular quarterlies produced by the joint venture
(Øresund Site News and Sund & Bro) provided information on the construction
logistics and technologies; an ad hoc-established factory in Copenhagen realized and
sailed the tunnel elements to the placement site128; the bridge elements, produced in
Spain and shipped to Malmö, were placed on the bridge pylons by «Svanen», a giant
floating crane which had crossed the Atlantic to reach the Sound129; the ship «Cas-
tor» was provided with a vacuum excavator in order to dig the Drøgen tunnel130.
On the 14th of august 1999, the fixed link was completed. Pre-inaugurated on
the 12th of june by the half-marathon Broloppet, the official inauguration took place
on the 1st of july, with the Danish and Swedish royals meeting on the new physical
boarder of their countries – on the bridge. The Swedish king, in its opening speech,
considered that «a dream has become reality – but that reality is much more than
just a bridge. The Oresund bridge creates a completely new region that we all hope
will become a new economic, cultural and power centre»131.

8. The end of imagination. Results, interests, and fears

Once the bridge became reality, transport policy experts assessed its works as trans-
parent, but unsatisfactory, since risks were found to be high and treated in a defi-
cient manner132. At the environmental level, the Sound was certainly modified, but

122  T. Grace, Mobility in Principle and Practice, in Importing EU Norms, edited by A. Björkd-

ahl et al., London, Springer, 2015, pp. 23-38; p. 29.

123  Svensk-dansk EU-rapport in «Sund & Bro», n. 21, 1996, p. 1.
124  H. Winding, EU-støtte til Øresund, in «Erhversvsliv Øresund», 12 november 1996, p. 43.
125  C.W. Matthiessen, Bridging the Öresund, in «Journal of Transport Geography», vol. 8,

2000, pp. 171-180; p. 177.

126  Satsa på infrastrukturen i Skåne, Malmö, 1992.
127  F. Nilsson, När en timme blir tio minuter, Lund, Historiska Media, 1999, pp. 128-132.
128  Vejen mod tunnelrenden, in «Øresund Site News», n. 8, 1997, p. 6.
129  Hjælpen hjælper!, in «Øresund Site News», n. 8, 1997, pp. 6-7.
130  “Castor” gores bedre, in «Sund & Bro», n. 21, 1996, p. 4.
131  Carl XVI Gustaf, H.M. Konungens tal vid invigningen av Öresundsbron, 1 july 2000.
132  N. Bruzelius et al., Big decisions, big risks, in «Transport Policy», vol. 9, 2002, pp. 143-154.
The Øresund bridge from imagination to innovation 327

the feared reduction of salty water inflow had not taken place133. The bridge was
effective in positively influencing the two shores of the Sound: despite bridge traffic
not fulfilling expectations, the daily commuters went from 3.291 in 2000 to 18.000
in 2010. In order to escape from high housing prices, in 2005 many Danes took res-
idence in Sweden and commuted daily to work. In the mid-2000s, the Danish mar-
ket had a labor shortage, which was solved by recruiting Swedes134. The economic
crisis did not reduce significantly the number of commuters: in 2015, they were still
15.100135 – a sign that the bridge has created stable preconditions for developing an
integrated labor market.
Nevertheless, policy and financial obstacles preclude a deeper level of integra-
tion – and therefore are an obstacle for innovation136. While the bridge is the only
stable inheritance of the European integration process, which continues with the
Interreg program, engineering regional institutions and cross-border cooperation
proved difficult – for example, the Oresund University was closed in 2010137. In
2015, the focus of cross-border cooperation shifted from imagining an Oresund
region to a Greater Copenhagen, in whose committee the Scania region and its cities
are also involved138.
Besides the difficulties of cross-border regional integration, the xenophobe pol-
iticians of both shores have often imagined to make the bridge an instrument of
division: in 2002, the leader of the Danish People’s Party Pia Kjærsgaard evoked
the installation of a lift bridge on the Oresund bridge, in order to defend Denmark
from the multicultural society of Sweden139. In September 2015, during the summer
migrant crisis, a politician from Sweden’s Democrat Party (Sverigedemokraterna)
invoked the image of a machine gun on the Oresund bridge140.
The migrant crisis of 2015 has constituted a huge stress test for relations between
the two countries. With a human flow preferring Sweden to Denmark for applying
for asylum, many of the 163,000 applicants directed to the Oresund bridge passed
through Denmark and were there registered according to the Dublin Agreement
rule. In September 2015, the decision of the Danish police to suspend registration
created tension between the two countries. Since December 2015, the Swedish po-

133  V. Mohrholz et al., Fresh oxygen for the Baltic Sea, in «Journal of Marine Systems», vol.

148, 2015, pp. 152-166.

134 Ørestat, Øresund Trends 2012, Copenhagen, Ørestat, 2012, pp. 65-66.
135  Fakta: trafiken över Öresund 2015, www.oresundsinstituttet.org.
136  A. Angelakis, The comprehensive role of knowledge and institutional endowments on regio-

nal transformation, in Entrepreneurial Knoweldge, edited by C. Karlsson, B. Johansson, R. Stough,

Abigdon, Routledge, 2013, pp. 215-237; p. 229.
137  C. Nauwelaers, K. Maguire, G. Ajmone Marsan, The case of Oresund, in «OECD Regional

Development Working Papers», vol. 21, 2013, pp. 29-30, pp. 41-42.
138 K.S. Kalin, Danskarna lämnar Örsundkomitten, in «HD-Sydsvenskan», 10 september

2015.
139  G. Eriksson, Vi kan alltid sätta en klaff på Öresundsbron, in «SvD», 19 march 2016, www.

svd.se/vi-kan-alltid-satta-en-klaff-pa-oresundsbron#sida-4.
140  A. Kvist, J. Jellbom, SD-politikern Gunilla Schmidt vill möta flyktningar med kulspruta, in

«SVT Nyheter», 9 september 2015, www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/helsingborg/sd-politiker-i-blasva-

der-for-flyktingkommentar.
328 Francesco Zavatti

lice have performed identity controls on trains and buses crossing the Sound, pro-
longing the trip to 50 minutes, generating stress among daily travellers, and produc-
ing damage of 15 million euros141. Denmark responded to the threat by the Swedish
government to close the bridge by cooperating in the controls but also by passing
the bill L 87, that allows the Danish authorities to confiscate migrants’ goods.

9. Conclusions

Imagining the Oresund bridge has, in the last three centuries, reflected Scandina-
vian, European, and national phenomena and trends present on both sides of the
Sound. Inspired by ideas of openness and unity among the peoples, its realization
has been prevented across the centuries by the two states, which could not agree on
the importance, utility, and advantages of a transnational fixed link. Bilateral coop-
eration was fundamental in realizing the Oresund bridge. For decades, the coopera-
tion has received policy inputs and economic support from international institutions
at Nordic and European level. A determinant contribution came from regional and
national politicians and from the European industrial lobby. These institutions and
groups succeeded by transforming an infrastructural project in a regional system of
innovation having an impact on international mobility and economy. The bridge is
now a physical reality but, as it has been imagined, planned, and realized in order
to favour communication, it may become a selective barrier reflecting Scandinavian,
European, and national fears, as recent events suggest.

Francesco Zavatti
Department of Historical and Contemporary Studies
Södertörn University,
Alfred Nobels Allé 7,
141 89 Huddinge, Sweden. 
francesco.zavatti@sh.se 
zavatti.francesco@gmail.com

141 Øresundsinstitutet, Fakta: Effekterna av id- och gränskontroller, 22 december 2016, www.

oresundsinstituttet.org.
The Øresund bridge from imagination to innovation 329

Fig. 1. The bridge from Malmö to Copenhagen as proposed by Rudolf Christiani in

1936. Perspective from Saltholm. Source: Förslag till bro över Öresund mellan Mal-
mö och Köpenhamn, Norrköping, Norrköpings Tidningars AB, 1936, p. 1.

Fig. 2. The bridge in 2015. Source: Øresund Bridge viewed from a plane taking off
from Copenhagen Airport. Photo by Nick-D. Copyright: CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified
in B/W.
330 Francesco Zavatti

Fig. 3. «In the past years a number of different bridges and tunnels have been pro-
posed. The most important are reported on the map above, where the remaining
main alternatives are numbered with 1) for the HH link and 2) for the KM link. The
decision may come during the year». Source: «Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snällpost», 5
march 1959, p. 2.