VNF and the Service Public de Wallonie (SPW) have inaugurated the Condé-Pommeroeul canal, reopening this 11 km Franco-Belgian waterway to large-gauge navigation for vessels of up to 3,000 tonnes. The reopening follows an extensive redevelopment project costing over €116 million. Major dredging and recalibration work was carried out, including the extraction of 1 million m3 of sediment and the excavation of 450,000 m3 of earth to bring the waterway up to wide gauge.
Once completed, the canal will save river transporters half a day's travel time. This is the first concrete realization of the European Seine-Scheldt link, which will connect the Seine basin, the Hauts-de-France region's seafront, the Scheldt basin and the ports of north-western Europe - a network of over 1100 km of wide-gauge waterways.
