Czech government approves work on multi-million-pound canal project linking Black Sea to Baltic

The Danube and Oder rivers will be joined by the new project

Credit: REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

The Czech government has approved preparation work on a multi-million pound canal project linking the Black Sea to the Baltic, despite opposition from environmental groups.

Once completed, boats will be able to sail on a continental waterway that Holy Roman emperors once contemplated and the Nazis even started building.

The first phase of the project to link the Danube and Oder rivers will consist of the construction of a canal, 40 metres wide and capable of carrying boats with a five-metre draft, linking the Polish town of Kedzierzyn-Kozle to the Czech town of Ostrava.

The plan will cost the Czechs around £500 million and includes the construction of eight bridges, two locks and a port.

Europe canal

A further £900 million will be spent by Poland taking the canal to the River Oder, while later phases will link the canal to the River Danube in Austria.

“The resolution [approving the preparation work] gives the green light to Kozle-Ostrava canal, which will support not only the economy but also the transport, energy and recreational sectors,” said Karel Havlicek, the Czech transport minister.  

Dreams of a waterway capable of taking ships from the Black Sea to the Baltic stretch back centuries with Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, envisaging linking the Oder to the Danube in the 14th century. In 1939 the Nazis attempted to turn dusty plans into reality when it actually started digging the canal, but built only a few miles before work was discontinued owing to the war.

Milos Zeman, the Czech president, has become an enthusiastic supporter of the waterway project, declaring that he wanted Szczecin, a Polish port on the Baltic, to “become a seaport for the Czech Republic”.

But the planned waterway faces significant opposition.

The World Wildlife Fund has condemned it saying it “would not only have dramatic effects on the [Oder] river and its floodplain landscape but will also be of little use to inland navigation since its water level is insufficient for transporting goods.”

The environmental organisation stressed that Europe “does not have a transport crisis but has, above all else, a climate and biodiversity crisis.”