2023-08-31 18:03:55
France and Italy decided on Thursday August 31 to postpone the long closure scheduled for Monday for maintenance of the Mont-Blanc tunnel in order not to congest road traffic after the closure of the Fréjus tunnel following a landslide in Savoie, announced Italian ministerial sources.
Matteo Salvini, Italian Deputy Prime Minister for Transport, and his French counterpart Clément Beaune agreed that “the Mont-Blanc tunnel will not close on Monday”. The works will be “probably postponed to September 2024”said these sources to the Italian Ministry of Transport.
Postponed to 2024
The Mont-Blanc tunnel was to be closed to traffic from September 4 to December 18 for heavy maintenance work. Hundreds of light vehicles and trucks pass through it every day, as well as through the Fréjus tunnel.
But this was prohibited for vehicles over 3.5 tonnes last week and until further notice, after a spectacular landslide of rocks in the Maurienne valley (Savoie), a major axis between France and the Northern Italy.
And since then, Rome has been pressing Paris to postpone the closure of the Mont-Blanc tunnel in order to avoid blocking trucks and forcing them to bypass Ventimiglia, further south.
“The Fréjus tunnel is closed due to the landslide, Mont-Blanc risks closing due to works, the Gotthard tunnel [en Suisse] also after a derailment. We really risk a blockage ”was alarmed earlier Thursday Matteo Salvini.
Closed tunnels
“The objective is to reopen Fréjus as soon as possible but I have asked [à mon homologue français Clément Beaune] the favor of postponing the work on Mont-Blanc, otherwise it will be chaos”he added.
According to Italian ministerial sources, the formal decision on the postponement of the Mont-Blanc work will be taken on Monday during an intergovernmental meeting.
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