A hydraulic rock drill broke open a tunnel connecting Austria to Italy 1,400 meters (nearly 4,600 feet) beneath the Alps on Thursday, marking a major milestone in a series of ambitious European Union projects that will accelerate passenger train travel between metropolitan centers and shift freight off the roads and onto rails.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker were on hand for the ceremonial breakthrough of the final meter of rock to open the first tunnel beneath the Brenner Pass, a key junction in an EU rail project that will one day run from Helsinki to Palermo.

“In the end, there is no project that is too big to be tackled, there is no project too big for us to bet on,” Meloni told a ceremony.

The Brenner Base Tunnel, which will be the longest

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