A forum of 12 EU countries spanning the Adriatic, Baltic and Black seas is making the region’s first collective attempt to invest its own money
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskDuring the cold war, central and eastern European countries prioritised east-west corridors—those leading to Moscow. In recent decades their growing wealth made it possible to build a more omnidirectional web of cross-border links, but national squabbles got in the way. Now the war in Ukraine is prompting the region to push ahead with its neglected connections.
Eastern Europe’s energy and trade flows look very different today from a year ago. In April Russia cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, forcing them to fall back on connections with others in the region. When Ukraine’s Black Sea ports were blockaded, trains and trucks could handle only a fraction of its grain exports. The country’s largest steelworks had to ship its goods by rail to ports in Poland—and reload them at the border, where the railway changes from Russia’s 1.
The turmoil has led to a flurry of new infrastructure plans. In May Denys Shmyhal, Ukraine’s prime minister, said his country would begin rebuilding its railways to European gauge. There is talk of turning the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, where many of the country’s businesses have relocated, into a hub with rail links to Kosice in Slovakia and Ostrava in the Czech Republic, as well as to southern Poland’s Silesia region.
Weaning Europe off Russian hydrocarbons has meant new regional energy links, too. In 2021 Croatia opened a liquefied natural gas terminal on its island of Krk. Last year Poland inaugurated an undersea gas pipeline to Norway, as well as links to Slovakia and Lithuania. In October Greece and Bulgaria opened a new gas link. Even Serbia is seeking to reduce its reliance on Russia, its friend, by plugging into Europe’s Southern Gas Corridor, says Olga Khakova of the Atlantic Council, a think-tank.
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