site.btaUPDATED Innovation, E-Government Ministers: New Innovation Fund to Be Founded under Three Seas Initiative

A new fund with an innovation focus will be established under the Three Seas Initiative (3SI), the caretaker Minister of Innovation and Growth Alexander Pulev told BTA on Monday. The funds will be targeted at start-ups and invested in concessions and public-private partnerships. Pulev said: "We have secured EUR 5 billion of new capital, which will be distributed in no small part to entrepreneurs. Around EUR 500 million is directed in the form of private equity".

The caretaker Minister of e-Government Georgi Todorov said that the fund's goal is to facilitate businesses and citizens. He added that having Bulgaria form an alliance with its neighbour Romania is the natural course of action.

Pulev and Todorov were in Bucharest on Monday to participate in the ministerial meeting on digital transformation as part of the 3SI summit events. The meeting at the Romanian Parliament building brought together representatives of the governments of the 3SI participating countries with stakeholders from Europe and the US. The Bulgarian ministers met with the Romanian Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitalization Sebastian Burduja.

3SI is a political project of 12 EU Member States: Bulgaria, Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. It is developed as a platform for cooperation with the main focus of deepening the integration of the countries of the region between the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas and creating greater North-South connectivity between them.

Pulev: Our foreign trade relations with Romania have reached their absolute peak. Last year, we registered a 30% growth. There is a spirit to be united, to stimulate investments across the border and to work together to generally strengthen the region, which is becoming very strategic not only for the countries that are part of it but also for our strategic international partners. [...] We want to seize this moment [...] and strengthen the dialogue, through active participation in the early negotiations in the creation of a new fund that will be "attached" to 3SI with an innovation focus. [...] What was also key during the discussions today (Monday) is to establish and fill with content this innovation fund after all.

Todorov: The idea behind all this is to share our resources. It may be immodest, but Bulgaria as a country has the potential to share with other countries.

Todorov shared that he believes that infrastructure should be built before services can be provided. He added: "When we finish building our data centres, when we create the conditions for the big investors, they will have an opportunity to base themselves in Bulgaria, to prefer Bulgaria, so that we can flood the whole region, as Minister Pulev said, Greece, Romania to the north, Georgia to the east.