A Vision for the E.U. Capital City - New Capital City for the European Union (3)

• THE TIMING OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW EU CAPITAL CITY

Timing will be a major aspect of developing the concept of the new EU Capital City. A good constitution cannot be set up without a sound philosophic base concept. A constitution is not the result of wishful thinking, nor can it be based on a compromise mix of 27 old and over-used ego-national political recopies. A visionary program for a desirable and sustainable future is needed:

In the spirit of Plato’s, „Republic“, and as a first step, a EUROPEAN ACADEMY should be founded to develop the base concept for a sustainable E.U. Capital City, free of all unnecessary and disturbing activities. It will be developed by a comprehensive planning task force, guided by leading philosophers with a generous view of the future and with sufficient distance from everyday end-gaining speculation. The EUROPEAN ACADEMY will retain leading philosophers and representatives from social, economic and political sciences and would be financed through a special European foundation, which must be fully independent from the E.U. administrative and political life.

These studies could begin immediately in a nucleus university campus on the secluded future site of the new E.U.Capital City .During the initial period , present EU institutions will remain in Brussels , in Strasburg and elsewhere. But the heart of the future government would be up built step by step, a type of philosophical island more comparable to a Buddhist shrine in Lhasa or the Machu pichu Inca retreat, offering the guiding thinkers a chance to develop a lasting and sustainable concept for the EU, free from short-sighted egoistic motivations.

SELECTION OF A SITE

The alps are the major geographic obstacle separating northern a nd southern Europe. The shortest N-S routes with optimal road and rail connections, excepting the eastern and western passages in the French and Austria-Slowenian alps, are the following passages: 

- ST. GOTTHARD connecting Milan/Basel and Strasburg or Zurich/Stuttgart
- SIMPLON connecting Milano with Berne, Paris or Strasburg 
- BRENNER connecting Verona with Munich


As the plains north and south of the alps are already densely populated the alpine zone is the best available open space for the new Capital City, with clean air, no pollution, easy access control and military strategic advantages. The ideal site will be found along one of the three passages: Simplon, St. Gotthard or Brenner.

CHOICE OF THE ST. GOTTHARD ALPINE REGION

For the purpose of this preliminary vision , the St.Gotthard region is selected, as it offers at present the shortest European N-S route and is the technically most advanced traffic artery through the Alps, the greatest obstacle to European development. The transit system includes a separate 4 lane highway (except for the 16 km long 2 lane tunnel) and a twotrack rail tunnel at altitude 1100 m, and a high-speed two separate tracks tunnel (57 km long) at altitude 555 m a/s under construction, as well as a year–round East West rail line from Geneva, Zermatt to St. Moritz, Chur , Munich and Arlberg. We also remember the Swiss army réduit in the St.Gotthard massif, an underground fortification system, which Hitler never dared to conquer.

The new Alpine rail tunnel ( NEAT) is currently in the finishing stage. Its double tunnels were built using 8 boring sites, at both ends and at three intermediary shafts, thus being able to reduce construction time. The middle shaft near the villages of Sedrun and Disentis reaches down 800 m to the tunnel level, with double floor heavyduty lifts for excavation. In 1998 the study group PORTA ALPINA, with Walter R Hunziker, cityplanner, proposed to build a new city at this site, thanks to a new rail-station to allow personnel access to the surface, thus placing Sedrun - Disentis at less than an hour by high-speed trains from Milan- , Basel/Mulhouse and Zurich airports. This site is used for a preliminary vision of a possible new Capital City of the European Union, described below:




Cross section showing new high- speed North-South rail-tunnel ( under construction) and metro connection to the new E.U. Capital Site envisioned on the slopes of the St. Gotthard mountain range at 2000 m a/s altitude , in the middle Of the European Alps.


• PROJECT DESCRIPTION

ACCESS PORTALPINA STATION NEAR THE VILLAGES OF SEDRUN AND DISENTIS

At present the Swiss- and cantonal governments are planning to create the PORTA ALPINA tunnel station 800 m below Sedrun and provide direct public access to the upper Rhine valley, using the existing tunnel-excavation and service lift installations.
The proposed E.U. Capital activities would obviously greatly exceed the presently estimated traffic volume and would require construction of a bigger station with separate rail tracks and a direct METRO LIFT to the valley floor and on up to the new alpine development plateau at around 2000 m a/s and on to the Oberalpstock at 3 327 m a/s , which will be a major sightseeing attraction of the the new Capital.

THE PROJECT REGION

The project area covers the southern slopes of the Oberalpstock mountain range at altitudes between 1900 and 2200 m a/s from the Oberalp Pass to the Val Russein over some 25 Km long and about 3 Km wide, a total of 75 Km2. The lower presently populated valley bottoms called Tujetsch, cover another 75 km2 The total surface can be compared with the surface of 150 km2 of Washington DC. The E.U. Capital project however will benefit form a comprehensive ekistics growth concept which will not only design monumental buildings and vistas, but which will determine and control landuse, provide efficient interconnection between activities or insolate them as needed. It will aim to physically keep corrupting and undesirable elements and distracting activities away and eliminate land speculation. The great advantage of the site is public ownership of the entire zone, a mostly unknown situation in any easily accessible central Europe.

THE SWISS POLITICAL SITUATION

The fact that Switzerland is not ( yet) a member of the E.U. may at first seem to be the obstacle to the project. It could however be an advantage, as Capital Cities , to avoid competitive jealousies etc. are usually separate districts like Washington D.C. ( District of Columbia) with no or restricted voting rights of the citizens, which for neutral Switzerland is already the case…. Their special relation to the E.U . would be further modified to suit all the members.


• SUMMARY

From the above considerations it appears that the EUROPEAN UNION will never become a SINGLE NATION, its partners being too different an many respects. The EU needs a longer period of reflection and some intution to find its proper political structure that will suit the diverse interests and still allow the formation of joint global responsibility and power. Europe must give itself the time and a place for the creation of that structure which cannot be a copy of any present national structure or much less an improvised mixed compromise.

A EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHIC ACADEMY would be an essential instrument to develop a comprehensive durable political concept for the E.U. God willing, this academy will then guide the formation of a sustainable successful government with a corresponding beautiful symbolic CAPITAL CITY.
→ Part 1  → Part 2

Walter R. Hunziker  
Cannes (France)

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