Introduction

“This (the Danube Oder Elbe canal) is a European affair. It makes no sense as a national project. We cannot afford it; such a project is tens or hundreds of billions of crowns. If the European Union recognizes the project is reasonable and is ready to finance it, then it might be realized”. Thus argued Pavel Drobil, Czech Environment Minister on August 16, 2010. Drobil agitated for a bold decision: Three months earlier, on May 26, 2010, the caretaker government of the Czech Republic, led by Prime Minister Jan Fischer, decided to extend the building ban in the corridor of the proposed route of the Danube-Oder-Elbe Canal. ¹ The administration took the last possible opportunity to close the debate that had re-opened several years earlier when the Czech Republic entered the European Union (EU). Despite long-running controversy over the idea of building a canal, national authorities, sensing a great funding opportunity from the EU Cohesion Fund, revived the century-old vision of building a canal to link the Elbe, Oder, and Danube rivers. ² The proponents saw the opportunity to correct a well-known mistake made by William Shakespeare, who in The Winter’s Tale famously (and inaccurately) refers to Bohemia as having a coastline. Proponents of the canal wanted to fulfill an old dream to situate Bohemia on European coasts. ³