Danube-Oder-Elbe Canal Becomes a Sore Point

Environmental organisations from across central and eastern Europe have criticised a major project intending to link three rivers and provide seamless navigation between three of Europe’s peripheral seas.

Key Features

• The Danube-Oder-Elbe Canal intends to connect the Danube, Oder and Elbe rivers and thus provide another navigable link from the Black Sea to the North and Baltic Seas.
• However, environmental organisations from Germany, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria, wrote a joint letter to the European Union’s Commissioners for Environment, calling for the project to be halted.
• The bodies said the project, if constructed, would destroy the region’s river landscapes, in ....