Morava-Vardar Canal

The Morava-Vardar Canal is a proposed infrastructure project, linking the Vardar river valley in North Macedonia with the Morava river valley in Serbia. This waterway will allow linking the Danube basin countries to the Mediterranean Sea.

Route
The proposed 651 km route would link the Danube, via the Morava River in Serbia, to a 20 km canal across the border into North Macedonia, connecting with the Vardar River, which flows into the Aegean Sea near Thessaloniki. In addition to the canal, long stretches of river would need navigation improvements. Currently, only the lowest three km of the Morava are navigable.

For shipping between the Aegean Sea and central Europe, this route would be 1,200 km shorter than the current passage via the Bosporus, Black Sea, and lower Danube.

Planning
Detailed plans were drafted by the Nazi government in 1941, in conjunction with navigation improvements on the Drava, Tisa, Begej, and Sava rivers, along with a Danube-Sava Canal.

Since World War 2, there have been a series of Serbian initiatives, hoping to build a Morava-Vardar Canal, with proposals and studies in 1961, 1964, 1966, 1973, and 1973–1980. Subsequently, In 2012, the Serbian Minister of Natural Resources, Mining and Spatial Planning said that the project would be completed within eight years. In 2013, the director of Serbia's State Agency for Physical Planning said that it was a realistic project and work would start shortly, with the Chinese government-owned Gezhouba Group Corporation. This was one of the most important projects for the Government of Serbia at the time.

Le Figaro published a Chinese-backed proposal in 2017: A 651 km route (including new canal and improved river navigation), expected to cost €17 billion. The mayor of Thessaloniki called it a "dream". As of 2018, one major obstacle to Serb proposals was the lack of intergovernmental agreements between Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, and Serbia; also, joint financing with the European Union appears unlikely.

As of July 2023, no construction has started.

There are proposals to develop railways in the area, which would complement the canal. There would be a strong stimulus to investment, especially in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Albania.