We are meeting today to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Three Seas Initiative, an initiative that arose from the need for deeper integration, primarily economic and infrastructural, in our part of Europe — Central Europe, said the Polish president during the opening session of the Summit.
The format is now a decade old, and the Three Seas Initiative has strengthened its function as one of the important tools for strengthening transatlantic relations in both the political and economic dimensions.
At the same time, as Andrzej Duda emphasised – as a project of the countries belonging to the European community, the Three Seas Initiative – also through actions aimed at deepening Euro-Atlantic relations – enriches and strengthens the European Union.
At present, the Three Seas Initiative comprises 140 priority projects, two investment funds and another in the design phase, as well as an extensive network of partnerships and many bottom-up initiatives covering regional, scientific and economic cooperation. Among the most important from the perspective of the strategic interests of the Republic of Poland are: gas interconnectors with Lithuania and Slovakia, the Via Carpatia expressway, the rail corridor of the TEN-T Baltic-Adriatic core network, Rail-2-Sea – rail connection between the ports of Gdansk and Constanta.
The summit was attended by:
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- Rumen Radev, President of the Republic of Bulgaria;
- Gitanas Nausėda, President of the Republic of Lithuania;
- Alar Karis, President of the Republic of Estonia;
- Bajram Begaj, President of the Republic of Albania;
- Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic;
- Jakov Milatović, President of Montenegro;
- Edgars Rinkēvičs, President of the Republic of Latvia;
- Tamás Sulyok, President of Hungary;
- Peter Pellegrini, President of the Slovak Republic;
- Ilie Bolojan, acting President of Romania;
- Andrej Plenković, Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia;
- Vladimir Bolea, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development of the Republic of Moldova;
- Oleksii Kuleba, Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration of Ukraine;
- Georgios Gerapetritis, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic;
- Alenka Bratušek, Minister of Infrastructure of the Republic of Slovenia;
- Abdülkadir Uraloğlu, Minister of Transport and Infrastructure of the Republic of Türkiye;
- Nikolaus Marschik, Secretary–General and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Austria;
- Fernando Sampedro Marcos, Secretary of State for the European Union in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of Spain;
- Tommy Joyce, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of International Affairs at the US Department of Energy;
- Viktor Elbling, Ambassador of Germany to Poland;
- Akira Kono, Ambassador of Japan to Poland;
- Cristina Lobillo Borrero, Head of Energy Platform Task Force in the Directorate–General for Energy of the European Commission.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky connected with the participants online.
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- In the afternoon, President Andrzej Duda, at a joint press conference with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda and Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, summed up the meeting of heads of state and government at the 10th Summit of the Three Seas Initiative. Discussions focused on future investments within the 3SI co–operation format, including the development of energy and transport infrastructure, as well as security issues for the countries in our region.
- This year, the cooperation format has been expanded to include new members – Albania and Montenegro joined the Three Seas Initiative in the capacity of associated participating states, while Spain and Turkey became new strategic partners.
The Summit was accompanied by a Business Forum
Joint Declaration of the 10th Summit of the Three Seas Initiative
- Courtesy of: Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland (https://www.president.pl/news/the-10th-three-seas-initiative-summit,100917)