The 'Three Seas Initiative' Summit has ended in Bucharest
The "Three Seas Initiative" has politically and conceptually matured and all the conditions have been met in order to be able to start concrete projects" is the conviction expressed by the head of the Romanian state, Klaus Iohannis, during the summit that has brought together in Bucharest this week, high officials from Europe and the United States.
The European Commission president, Jean Claude Juncker and the US Secretary for Energy, Rick Perry were among the participants in the event. Economic projects for the development of the region stretching between the Baltic, the Adriatic and the Black Seas were high on the agenda of the two-day Summit in Bucharest. The "Three Seas Summit" is a flexible political platform, which includes the 12 EU members between the three aforementioned seas: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The summit was aimed at making concrete headway in the process of increasing the region's inter-connectivity in three main directions - energy, transport and digitization. "The Initiative has the potential to facilitate an increased interconnectivity in Central and Southeastern Europe, step up economic and trade relations and boost investment in the region also with other partners from the Euro-Atlantic community. Therefore we are advocating this initiative's contribution to the general consolidation of the European Union and the Transatlantic relation" the Romanian president added. A series of projects have been presented during the event, but all the parties involved have been pleading their causes. Let's find out more from Dan Dungaciu, director of the Institute for Political Sciences and International Relations with the Romanian Academy
Dan Dungaciu: "Summits are like microwave ovens. They don't bake the food. You must bring in the dish, which has already been prepared, you can warm it up but cannot start cooking right there, you know. Participants in a summit don't get an idea all of a sudden and start building up projects just like that. They actually come to present projects that have already been worked out. Of course they are looking for opportunities, but these opportunities are being considered in relation to their projects. The big discussion is actually around these issues; who cooked the food? Was it well-cooked and well-done? Is it to the liking of others? This is what summits are all about."
The Three Seas Initiative was launched in 2015 starting from the premise that Central Europe will become the backbone of a solid Europe based on three pillars: economic convergence, cohesion at European level and a strong trans-Atlantic relation, reminded the president of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic. The Croat president is the one who launched the Initiative three years ago together with her Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda. She also highlighted that a Business Forum was held for the first time on the sidelines of the Three Seas Initiative summit in Bucharest.
The participants in the summit also underlined that energy security remained a prerequisite for implementing innovation and boosting the common potential. As president of the EU Council, Austria will try to finalize the EU package on clean energy, said Alexander van der Bellen, the president of this country, which will hand over the rotating presidency to Romania on January 1, 2019. The Austrian president also said that the common goal should be to ensure energy security for all European citizens, and for that purpose energy sources and conveyance routes should be diversified. Here is Dan Dungaciu with more on the importance of such a summit.
Dan Dungaciu: "Such a summit is important for its potential. It provides the opportunity for a country, a member of the EU and NATO, to materialize certain things in one way or another. Secondly, I would say that we are part of an initiative that was developed by actors with major interests on the north-south economic axis. Significant issues are being discussed, such as infrastructure, transport or energy, which are on the north-south Axis, an important axis. But I would say that this axis is not the most important from Romania's perspective. If Romania was to create a regional project and a European project, it should have created a project on the East-West Axis. Why? Because today's main stake for Romania is to get interconnected, to get connected with the western players. Today it has become clearer than ever before that having resources doesn't necessarily make you a hub. Therefore, Germany, Turkey, Hungary do not have energy resources but they are very significant regional hubs and are becoming more and more important by the day. So Romania should get connected with this, should aspire to this."
The Three Seas Initiative comes to support the common goal of the EU, namely to get the East closer to the West, said the European Commissioner for Regional Development, Corina Cretu, at the Business Forum held on the sidelines of the Three Seas Initiative summit in Bucharest.
Useful Links
Copyright © . All rights reserved