The government has not decided whether the corridor shall be built. The EIA will now be prepared.8/10/2020|Press releasesThe hereby react to the misleading statements of Česká společnost pro ekologii and Česká limnologická společnosti and other societies from this field At its meeting on 5 October 2020, the government acknowledged the results of the feasibility study on the Danube-Odra-Labe water corridor and authorised the transport minister with preparations of the Odra branch in section Ostrava-Svinov – state border with Poland (Koźle). Preparations in this section for the investment shall by no means be construed as a decision on construction commencement of this water corridor as such. There are several variants for navigation foreseen on Odra to Ostrava still to be discussed. It is a matter of fact that such a project must go through the EIA and public discussions with affected municipalities and the region prior to possible construction. Besides this, the government took the feasibility study into account and authorised the transport minister with the preparation of EIA inputs as well as inputs for the impact assessment on Natura 2000. This shall open, among other things, a public and professional discussion based on sufficient data, which is also expected from the government in the statement. Before these assessments, it would be very premature to say that the project should have a negative environmental impact. The results of this assessment should be provided to the government in 2023, so any next steps are possible only then. We must remember in this context that DOL construction plans are very old and the expected corridor has been defended in regional development plans on all levels since 1970s. The Czech government has repeatedly confirmed its intention in government decisions in 1996, 2006, 2011 and 2013 when the minister of transport was repeatedly instructed to continue with the due diligence of this navigation corridor. But none of that was actually ever done. The land provision for this DOL route that is almost 500 km long has been restricting the regional development of many municipalities along the road for 50 year now! This includes many towns along river Morava. To allow the government to do an objective assessment of the possible construction of the Danube-Odra-Labe water corridor, the Ministry of Transport assigned in 2016 a feasibility study to check the economic effectiveness of the project in terms of transportation, water management, energy and recreational functions. All benefits and risks will be very sensitively assessed before any decision is made in this respect – in terms of European and national legislation and environmental requirements. And should the project move on, then only provided the final proposal will be environmentally friendly to the maximum possible degree and bring benefits not only to transportation, logistics and renewable energy sectors, but also encourage tourism and improve the water management during floods and droughts.