How Czechia plans to connect Europe’s major rivers

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As a Czech, I can safely say this will NEVER happen

Slovakia still haven't connected 2 of its largest cities. The highway is under construction since the 70s, and it's always "just 10 years away". I don't see this happening anytime soon.

As a Czech, I really appreciate that my favorite youtube channel covers something connected to my country. But frankly, this was just a wet dream of our former president Milos Zeman, who uncritically advocated it.

As a Czech, I know this plan will never be realised. Both funding and ecological damage would be so wast, there is just no way it would happen.

Outdated info, pal. Im Czech. This plan was scrapped last year by the government. This canal was just a pipe-dream of people with backward economic thinking. It is no longer in any development plans. And also .... "When Elbe and Oder reach Czechia...?" Both of those rivers originate in Czechia.

This was a megalomaniac plan by the former Czech president Zeman. When his presidency ended, the plans to build this canal ended with it. The plans were officially cancelled by the government. It was only quietly supported before that, because politicians wanted to stay on the good side of the president, but everyone always knew it was not feasible. So no, Czechia is currently not planning anything like this.

Being Czech and seeying how things are done around here puts your videos into perspective for me. Now I know when you talk about big projects, its just random stuff on paper that will never see the light of day.

As a Czech I must say this and many of your videos are very well researched. Channel Odra Labe Dunaj is considered something of the past here. The economical benefits cannot and will not outweigh the disruption to the environment, wild life and the lives of Czechs. Boosting rail/road network is the alternative. Anyway, thanks for covering Czech Republic in your videos. Your faithful viewer ;)

Saying Czechia is planning this is a major overstatement. The plans have been cancelled multiple times, most recently in early 2023; it is I think also important to note that in the last decade, they were mostly kept alive due to the fact that this river connection was heavily advocated for by the now former Czech president Milos Zeman, mentioned in the video. Very few other officials and / or common people want to see this realised, as the immense financial, environmental and other costs not only overweigh the benefits, but would be much better invested elsewhere.

Yeah no, that's not gonna happened. This was a megalomaniac dream of the last president Zeman and made absolutely no sense as it would completely destroy the local ecosystem especially since even now there's not enough water to navigate the Elbe a lot of the time. Also, the canal would have big problems outcompeting the very expansive rail network here. Thankfully the current government canceled all future plans for this environmental and economic catastrophe.

As a skipper on European rivers, this is unfeasible economically. Both the Elbe and the Odra have very low water theoughout most of the year and they are anyway made redundant by the Main Donau Kanal connecting further to the Rhine, Waal and back to the Elbe and Odra through the Mitteland Kanal

“While the youth understand the rules, the Elders understand the exceptions” ~~well said

Brăila is not a major port that this project is supposed to link. Constanța exports by far most of the Ukrainian grains and it’s one of the main ports in Europe. Constanța is linked to the Danube river by the Danube-Black Sea canal.

I feel like the steps taken by the Czech government to cancel this plan should've been mentioned...

This video presents as if the Danube-Oder-Elbe canal project is still on the table. In the meantime, it has already been abandoned. The Czech government decided in February 2023 to abandon the reservation of land along the planned Danube-Oder-Elbe canal project. Thus, the land can be used for other investment projects, as the local authorities had called for, and the idea of building the canal was definitely buried. The government's decision removed the reservation of land, which until now could not be used for any other purpose than the construction of a possible waterway.

The plan has been officially cancelled after MANY years. It would definbitely look cool but I think there are other more important projects to focus on. The use would probably not be as big as many people expect. Also there are still many problems that would need to be solved to build such thing, such as how do you want to get water above the river sources without having to keep pumping it up there which would cost a lot of energy.

As the existing rivers are already hard to navigate normally, connecting them via a canal to the Danube through more mountainous areas will not improve that, but will create even higher costs that will not be recovered in centuries. There is already a Danube-Rhine canal in Germany uniting the Black Sea with the North Sea and the Kiel Canal uniting the Baltic and North Seas. Instead of digging such expensive canal, they should focus on dredging the existing rivers and make them navigable at all times to import cheaper goods via Germany and Poland, as not so much traffic comes to Europe by the Danube (Black Sea is also a warzone thanks to Russia, so many cargo ships will prefer the longer but safer route to the Mediterranean or North Sea ports). Czechia is not anymore a landlocked country, as part of European Union and the Schengen Area, like any other landlocked state inside the USA or Canada.

The thing is: The Oder isn't currently navigable. And while the Poles wanted to change that, the German eco--activists strongly oppose it and even got the German border Land governments onboard. There is also the incident with the pollution of Oder last year by some private company.

Due to the existence of the kiel channel and the rhine-danube channel i think the usefulness of this project is somewhat overstated in your video. Especially the part going to the elbe, between black sea and baltic sea you definitely could save a lot of time compared to all the waterways i know of but the way from Świnoujście to Hamburg really isn't long enough that i could see it being worth the extra work Edit: just to be sure i don't think that the overstating is intentional, after all that's how most people in favor talk about it while those against it attack problems other than usefulness