“There are nine million bicycles in Beijing – that’s a fact.”

Michael Svane, vice chairman of the FBBC started his introductory statement for the panel discussion on the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link with these popular song lyrics by Katie Melua’s, in the Nordic Embassies on 25 March 2015, drawing a parallel that it is also a fact that nine million citizens live in the Fehmarn Belt region. He pointed out that those nine million people not only build a large sales market for 600,000 businesses, but that they make for a great potential in many ways in this developing region and beyond the boundaries of the Fehmarn Belt region.

With reference to the song line “Bridge over Troubled Waters”, he finished his opening statement in which he had drawn a line around the topics of infrastructure, region development and environment, but also underlining the importance of culture in the entire region forming process.

Along with Michael Svane the other guests on the podium were Magnus Heunicke, Danish Minister of Transport, Enak Ferlemann, Parl. State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Transport, Erik Bromander, State Secretary at the Swedish Ministry for Infrastructure, Torsten Albig, Ministerpräident of Schleswig-Holstein, Pat Cox, European Coordinator for the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor (Scanmed / TEN-T), and Henrik Appel, STRING Chairman and member of the Parliament of the City of Copenhagen.

The Parliamentary Evening on 25 March 2015, had taken place by invitation of the Danish Ambassador Per Poulsen-Hansen and the STRING cooperation in the Nordic Embassies in Berlin.

Prior to the parliamentary evening Michael Svane used the opportunity as a guest in the STRING Political Forum to also discuss the development prospects and opportunities for cooperation between the public and private sectors with 20 political representatives from Germany, Denmark and Sweden.