Romania Hosts Three Seas Initiative Summit

Momchil Rusev, BTA correspondent Martina Gancheva

Three Seas Initiative Photo

Bucharest,

06.09.2023 10:21

(BTA)

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis will host the Three Seas Initiative summit to be held on Wednesday in Bucharest. The event will be attended by representatives of all 12 countries participating in the initiative (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania), as well as strategic partners - the US, the European Commission and Germany.

Bulgaria will be represented by a delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mariya Gabriel.

There will be guests from Greece, Ukraine, Moldova, Japan, the UK, France, Turkiye and international organizations such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Romania is the first of the Three Seas Initiative countries to organize a summit for the second time. During the forum, Iohannis will present the results of the country's mandate at the helm of the Initiative (June 2022 - September 2023).

At the end of the discussions, a joint declaration is expected to be adopted, which will make Greece the 13th participating country in the Initiative as a full member, while Ukraine and the Moldova will be granted the status of associate members.

"In the current geopolitical context, more than a year and a half after the beginning of Russia's brutal and illegal aggression against Ukraine, this platform for high-level political dialogue is becoming an important instrument for strengthening regional and European resilience", the Romanian head of State said on the eve of the forum.

During the meeting, he will encourage the development of new instruments and partnerships to accelerate investment in the Initiative's priority projects, including through the creation of a new investment fund that will continue the work of the one launched at the Bucharest summit in September 2018.

The Three Seas Initiative has not been institutionalized and has no headquarters and no secretariat, a BTA check showed. It brings together 12 EU member states located between the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas. Its main goal is to deepen the integration of the Central and Eastern European region within the EU through greater connectivity between the participating countries along the North-South axis in key areas such as energy, transport, communications, and information technology.

The first meeting of the initiative took place on August 25, 2016, in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and the last one - June 20-21, 2023, in Riga, Latvia. The main topic then was the deteriorated security environment due to the war in Ukraine and the new challenges facing the countries of the region. The member states created a new kind of partnership - partner status - for countries that want to become members of the European Union. For the first time, the status was granted to Ukraine.

Bulgaria hosted the sixth summit of the Three Seas Initiative on July 8-9, 2021, in Sofia. During the forum, a joint declaration of Heads of State was adopted, expressing the common political will to work for the accelerated development of the region through improved transport, energy and infrastructure connectivity, by stimulating public-private partnerships and by introducing new innovative development models.

/MR/