As we saw in the case of the new Indian Silk Road, the subject of a recent post, new trade routes develop when old ones become hazardous or less efficient in transporting goods. They can also create conflicting geopolitical pressures.

The Belt and Road Initiative
The biggest infrastructure project of modern times, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, launched in 2013, aimed to open up world trade routes to Chinese goods by addressing an “infrastructure gap” on the traditional East-West trade routes.

According to Wikipedia:
“The initial focus has been infrastructure investment, education, construction materials, railway and highway, automobile, real estate, power grid, and iron and steel. Already, some estimates list the Belt and Road Initiative as one of the largest infrastructure and investment projects in history, covering more than 68 countries, including 65% of the world’s population and 40% of the global gross domestic product as of 2017. The project builds on the old trade routes that once connected China to the west, Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta’s routes in the north and the maritime expedition routes of Ming dynasty admiral Zheng He in the south. The Belt and Road Initiative now refers to the entire geographical area of the historic ‘Silk Road’ trade route, which has been continuously used [since] antiquity.”

The land and maritime Silk Routes of the Belt and Road pass through central Asia and Russia, and the Red Sea and the Suez Canal respectively. The main rail corridor from China to Western Europe, which passes through Russia, has become hazardous since the imposition of sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as well as being potentially vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks. (An alternative route passes through Iran and Turkey.) At the same time the main maritime route through the Suez Canal has become problematic for a number of reasons: congestion, vulnerability to obstruction through navigational errors, and the attacks on shipping in the Red Sea by the Houtis as a consequence of the war in Gaza.

The new Indian Silk Road
The difficulties of using the Suez Canal led to the creation of the project for a India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), or new Indian Silk Road, which was officially announced on September 9 2023, during the G20 Summit in New Delhi. It bypasses the Canal and provides a route to Europe for Indian goods which includes rail transit through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Israel and then shipment to the European ports of Piraeus, Marseilles and Trieste.

Turkey is one of the transit countries for the Belt and Road rail route to Europe, while Istanbul is an important commercial centre in the Eastern Mediterranean. The country could therefore face a diminution of its regional influence were the IMEC to go ahead, and this could be a factor in the current hostility between Turkey and Israel, in addition to the former’s espousal of the Palestinian cause.

While Greece is keen to maintain the relatively friendly relations it has managed to establish with Turkey over the past couple of years, it is a self-declared firm ally of Israel and cannot escape the polarisation implied by its joint infrastructure projects in the Eastern Mediterranean, such as the Great Sea Interconnector which will link the Greek, Cypriot, and Israeli power grids via the world’s longest submarine power cable.

The Bosphorus
Another pinch point in international trade is the Bosphorus at Istanbul. Indeed owing to the congestion of ships passing through the strait, and the potential hazards presented by the oil and gas tankers which form much of the traffic, Turkey has plans to construct a 45 km canal parallel to the Bosphorus, which would cut through forests and farmland, with a depth of 21 m and a width of 275-350 m. An opening ceremony was conducted in June 2021, but there are doubts as to whether it will ever be constructed owing to environmental concerns and the investment risks it entails.

At the same time, the hostilities between Russia and Ukraine have severely limited maritime communications in the Black Sea, with Russia initially blocking the grain exports on which Ukraine depends for much of its foreign revenue.

A corridor from Alexandroupoli to Odessa
It is in this context that Greece has hatched a plan for a new transport and energy corridor which would run from Alexandroupoli near the Greek-Turkish border, overland via Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova, to the Ukrainian port of Odessa on the Black Sea. In addition to being a major seaport and transport hub, Odessa is also a multi-ethnic cultural centre, with a historic centre which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and as a result of Russian bombing attacks following the invasion of Ukraine was added to the list of World Heritage in Danger in January 2023. The city has a long association with Greece and was the home of the Filiki Etaireia, the secret political and revolutionary organisation created in 1814 which aimed to overthrow Ottoman rule in Greece and establish an independent Greek state. Practical considerations apart, the city therefore has a strong emotional significance for Greece.

According to a report on the website thewesternbalkans.com:
“In the framework of the fourth Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit in June, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis launched the construction of a transport corridor [which] is planned to connect the Greek port of Alexandroupolis with Odessa via Varna and the Romanian city of Constanța. The length of the route will be about 1,000 kilometres. This will be a multi-profile project, including transport railways, power lines and pipelines, and transport in this way will be faster than sea transport. The Alexandroupolis-Odessa corridor should be ready by 2030….

“Among the key objectives of the project is the integration of the transport systems of Ukraine and Moldova into the European space. The Greek port of Alexandroupolis has already established itself as an important logistical and military hub for the US and NATO in Eastern Europe, which gives the corridor additional military and strategic importance. Geopolitically, the corridor strengthens Ukraine’s relationship with the EU, provides alternative supply routes in the event of a crisis, and reduces regional dependencies.”

One effect of the corridor will be to funnel commercial traffic away from the Bosphorus and avoid the hazards of Black Sea navigation, which will remain so long as the war in Ukraine persists. It will also no doubt be seen by Turkey as a move which is hostile to its interests in the Eastern Mediterranean. As a foretaste of things to come, during a flying visit by Volodymyr Zelensky to Athens on Saturday, it was announced that Ukraine has secured imports of US liquefied natural gas from Greece to cover its winter needs from December through to March next year, following Russian attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure and gas production facilities.