Energy, ports and Corridor VIII in the Balkans: the true Adriatic frontier

The key hub of the rail corridor in the Western Balkans is the port of Durrës and its link to the Albanian hinterland. On 8 April 2025, the European Investment Bank and the Albanian government signed a European financing package for the modernisation of the 34-kilometre Durres–Rrogozhinë railway line. The operation involves an EU grant of €60.5 million, an EIB loan of €30 million and EBRD co-financing of €30 million, against an estimated total project cost of €121 million. This is more than just a simple restoration of the railway line. It links Albania’s main maritime hub to European funding, procurement procedures and technical standards. Furthermore, it strengthens the physical interface through which Italy’s maritime capacity must integrate into the Balkan land network. The main physical obstacle to the corridor remains the rail link between North Macedonia and Bulgaria. On 6 November 2025, the Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport, Grozdan Karadjov, and the North Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport, Aleksandar Nikoloski, signed an agreement at Gyueshevo station concerning the preparation, construction and management of the cross-border rail tunnel. The European Commission has described the infrastructure as an integral part of the TEN-T and as a flagship project of the Global Gateway. The agreement has removed a major diplomatic obstacle, but engineering and implementation risks remain. The construction of tunnels, bridges and tracks may be delayed due to geological conditions, disputes over contracts, inflation and contractors’ performance. More importantly, civil engineering works alone do not guarantee military mobility. The line must also be equipped with a compatible signalling system, electrification, axle load capacity, passing loops, recovery equipment and fast-track border procedures.

Bari, Brindisi and Taranto could form a distributed logistics network. Not three competing ports, but three hubs with distinct roles in Ro-Ro operations, heavy cargo handling, naval support, maintenance, storage, energy supply and emergency diversion routes. Brindisi holds particular political significance. On 27 July 2023, it hosted the first ministerial meeting dedicated to Corridor VIII, during which Italia, Albania, Bulgaria and North Macedonia recognised its economic and strategic importance. But it would be a mistake to turn this centrality into dependence on a single port. Italy’s strategic focus should therefore be the entire port arc of the southern Adriatic, connected to the national road and rail networks and supported by redundant energy capacity. Southern Italy would thus become not merely a transit area, but the western hub of a system extending to the south-eastern flank of the Alliance.

The transformation of Corridor VIII into a dual-use infrastructure will not depend solely on the completion of the works. A commercial port becomes militarily significant when it can handle heavy vehicles, dangerous goods and priority cargo whilst continuing to handle a substantial proportion of civilian traffic. A railway becomes strategic when bridges, tunnels, axle load, gauge, track length, signalling and rolling stock allow for the continuous passage of heavy trains. Ferries, Ro-Ro ships, flat-bed wagons, locomotives, recovery vehicles, fuel, secure areas and trained staff are also required. The European Commission has recognised this gap between available infrastructure and actual mobility. Under the 2021–2027 financial framework, €1.69 billion has co-financed 95 dual-use projects. For the period after 2028, the Commission has proposed €17.65 billion and has identified around 500 priority projects aimed at removing bottlenecks at bridges, in tunnels, at ports and at airports. This therefore opens up a financial and industrial opportunity of exceptional significance for Italia. However, access to European funding must be structured around integrated programmes, not individual projects. A new quay without a rail link, a railway without a resilient power supply or a substation without cyber security do not constitute strategic capacity. They constitute incomplete investments.

China’s official policy has consistently regarded the transport infrastructure of Central and Eastern Europe as a gateway for trade, investment and the expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative. In official talks with Bulgaria, Beijing has promoted infrastructure connectivity, transport, aviation, logistics and finance, whilst Bulgaria has presented itself as a potential gateway and hub between Europe and Asia. In 2019, Xi Jinping held official talks in Beijing with Bulgarian President Rumen Radev. The Sofia Guidelines for China–Central and Eastern Europe Cooperation explicitly supported synergies between the Belt and Road Initiative and the TEN-T, the potential extension of transport links to Albanian ports and other regions, and the development of express land-sea links. These documents demonstrate that Beijing views the same geographical area through a connectivity framework encompassing infrastructure, logistics, customs, finance and trade hubs.

L’incontro a Pechino

Il presidente Rumen Radev e il presidente cinese Xi Jinping camminano insieme durante una cerimonia di benvenuto nella Grande Sala del Popolo a Pechino, 3 luglio 2019

Russia’s official transport strategy provides a different but relevant comparison. It defines an international transport corridor not simply as a physical route, but as a combination of routes and the technological, organisational and legal conditions that enable transport. According to the Russian Federation’s transport strategy up to 2030, strategic corridors are systems of governance as much as they are infrastructure. Moscow’s focus is currently on the north-south, east-west and Arctic corridors controlled by Russia, rather than on Corridor VIII; however, its strategic interest lies in preventing NATO from transforming Balkan infrastructure into a resilient, reinforced architecture and in preserving its political and informational influence in south-eastern Europe. The correct assessment is therefore not that Chinese investment is automatically harmful, nor that Russian influence requires formal ownership. The risk lies in opaque contracts, dependence on specific suppliers, access to data, political funding, disinformation, the preparation of acts of sabotage, and dependence on external maintenance or digital systems.

Italia’s advantage stems from its ability to coordinate aspects that no other regional player possesses simultaneously. Italia has ports on the Adriatic, an electrical engineering industry, shipbuilding, cable manufacturing, rail infrastructure, energy operators, armed forces integrated into NATO, access to European financial mechanisms and well-established political relations with the Western Balkans. The main weakness is therefore not a lack of resources. Rather, it is the absence of a unified coordinating body. What is needed is a permanent structure tasked with considering the electricity corridor and the logistics-military corridor jointly. Not a new bureaucratic body, but a control centre capable of mapping capacities, dependencies, ownership, contracts, spare parts, data, safeguards and restoration times.

Between 2027 and 2031, Italia should organise at least one major integrated exercise stretching from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. The exercise should set off from several Italian ports, cross the sea, land in Albania and continue through North Macedonia and Bulgaria, simultaneously involving electricity grids, railways, roads, customs, ports, energy operators and security facilities. This should not be a demonstration designed to succeed, but a stress test designed to cause failures. A substation could be declared out of service. A port IT system could be simulated as having been compromised. A road could be closed. A commercial operator could withdraw a ship. A border crossing could face an administrative delay. A power line could be restricted due to congestion. The outcome would be measured using simple indicators: capacity transferred, tonnage handled, border crossing times, duration of the disruption, percentage of civilian traffic maintained, recovery time and the number of dependencies on external suppliers. The test would not be intended to prove that the corridor is invulnerable. It would serve to identify in advance where it would fail.

Corridor VIII and the Trans-Balkan electricity grid could reshape Italy’s energy landscape. A more interconnected energy system can offer greater flexibility, integrate new renewable generation and mitigate, at least under certain conditions, price volatility. An efficient logistics corridor can reduce transit times to the Balkans, the Black Sea and the markets of south-eastern Europe. The corridor would thus become not merely a route through which goods pass, but an industrial market governed in part by Italia. This is a challenge that will be decided over the next five years. It demonstrates that the Mediterranean is not only NATO’s southern flank but also the Balkan region, which is very close to Rome both geographically and strategically.