To alleviate road congestion, Europe plans to establish a new waterborne freight corridor between Le Havre, Paris, and the Ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam.
Both Flanders and Wallonia are allocating significant resources to this large-scale European inland waterway project, now called the Seine-Scheldt, which comprises a network of 1,100 kilometers of navigable waterways.
To date, as reported by the business newspaper L’Echo, Wallonia has already invested nearly 1 billion euros in the project, the largest inland waterway infrastructure project in Europe.
The Region is therefore considered a strategic link between the French Seine Valley and the Benelux North Sea ports, with Ghent, Zeebrugge, Antwerp, and Rotterdam as their terminals.
The Canal Seine-Nord Europe
The key component of the Seine-Scheldt project, which also ensures a connection to the Rhine and Meuse river basins, is a completely new canal to be dug: the Canal Seine-Nord Europe.
It is intended to link the Oise River with the Dunkirk-Scheldt Canal. It must be suitable for ships up to 185 meters long and 11.40 meters wide, with a cargo capacity of 4,400 tons – the equivalent of 22 trucks.
The canal will be 107 kilometers long and 54 meters wide, forming the link between the French network and the 20,000 km of European waterways. It is expected to open by 2032-2033.
Upgrading historic or neglected infrastructure
Europe is financing half of the originally planned project cost of 7 billion euros, but Wallonia has also already invested nearly 1 billion euros.
After all, some of Wallonia’s infrastructure still dates to the 1950s, and the Walloon government is using this project to modernize the river network connecting Hainaut, Charleroi, Namur, and Liège.
For example, new locks are planned in the Hainaut region in Obourg, Viesville, Gosselies, and Marchienne-au-Pont along the axis between Charleroi and Brussels, in addition to the existing ones, which are being renovated at the same time.
The Pont des Trous in Tournai, a fortified water gate on the Scheldt and a protected monument, was also modified because the bridge was no longer suitable for modern inland shipping, just as the Condé-Pommeroeul Canal was reopened.
This 11-kilometer-long cross-border canal, which connects the Nimy-Blaton-Péronnes Canal on the Belgian side with the Scheldt River in Condé-sur-l’Escau, France, had been closed to navigation since 1992 due to partial silting. Since 2016, after years of wrangling,
Voies navigables de France and the Service Public de Wallonie have carried out major dredging and realignment works: 1 million m³ of sediment was removed, and 450,000 m³ of earth was excavated.
Thanks to the canal, which reopened in 2023, boaters can now avoid a 30-kilometer detour via the Nimy-Blaton-Péronnes Canal and save half a day of travel time.
Flanders also involved
Along with the Service public de Wallonie, the Société du Canal Seine-Nord Europe, and Voies navigables de France, Vlaamse Waterweg is also one of the four official partners of the project.
Major investments are planned along the Leie axis (Seine-Scheldt) and the Roeselare-Leie Canal, and new locks will be built on the Upper Scheldt.
Meanwhile, efforts are being made to increase navigational capacity, restore the river, promote recreation on and along the water, and support urban renewal.
Under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for the period 2021-2026, the European Commission awarded 276 million euros to the Seine-Scheldt project.
The Vlaamse Waterweg received a grant of 62.78 million euros for this purpose. This is in addition to previous European grants of 176 million euros (2007-2013) and 539 million euros (2014-2020).
Delays and higher costs
The point is: as is often the case with major infrastructure projects, these works have since fallen behind schedule, and the cost of the projects has also risen further.
The Seine-Northern Europe Canal was originally scheduled to open in 2010. That date was later pushed back to 2028, and according to the European Court of Auditors, 2032 or 2033 now seems more likely.
The planned project cost of 7 billion euros has since risen to approximately 10 billion euros. And both Flanders and Wallonia have committed to a project estimate of around 1 billion euros.
In 2024, 18.4 million tons and 85,503 containers passed through the Seine-Scheldt corridor, a position that was strengthened last year by 6.36% growth.
This immediately confirms the strategic importance of this corridor as a major logistics artery, even though the network – without the direct connection to the Paris basin – has not yet been fully modernized.
