Denmark and Germany were to meet Friday for possibly crucial talks on building one of Europe's biggest bridges, linking Hamburg and Copenhagen, a state government official said, according to dpa. Germany has been cool to demands to guarantee half the cost of the 19-kilometre bridge across a strait, the Fehmarn Belt, where big auto ferries currently depart both ways every 30 minutes, day and night. German broadcaster NDR said late Thursday that Denmark was now resigned to guaranteeing the greater part of the construction bill and an agreement was likely to be signed in Berlin on Friday. A spokesman for Dietrich Austermann, transport minister of Germany's northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, said he, German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee and Danish counterpart Flemming Hansen would be at the Berlin meeting. The newspaper Luebecker Nachrichten was to report Friday that Tiefensee had settled financing details with Chancellor Angela Merkel. NDR said Tiefensee told Merkel the Danes had been agreeable and he expected a deal to be struck. The bridge and its approaches are set to cost 5.5 billion euros and would be one of Europe's biggest upcoming transport projects. Concession companies would attempt to recover the investment by charging tolls. The bridge would cut travel times on the Copenhagen-Hamburg highway by an hour, since there would be no more waits for the ferry.
