Greece has been admitted as a member of the Three Seas Initiative at the Bucharest summit of the format. In addition, Moldova and Ukraine have become associate partners.
The Three Seas Initiative is a diplomatic and economic format that has been joined by 12 EU states that lie between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas. It aims to increase cooperation on transport, energy and digitalization. The current 12 nations, which include Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Austria, Estonia, Croatia, Czechia, Latvia and Lithuania, have now become 13 with the accession of Greece.
The summit in Bucharest was attended by Polish President Andrzej Duda, while the United States was represented by the special emissary on climate change, John Kerry.
Duda said that the fact the initiative was expanding was clearly “a success of this summit.”
The Polish president claimed that this expansion proves that the initiative has proven its worth in recent times. According to Duda, the events of the last 18 months have proved how important infrastructure projects are, a clear reference to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He said that the necessity to supply Ukraine with products and arms could not have taken place at the required pace without a boost to infrastructure in the region.
Greece is at the southernmost tip of the Three Seas countries and could provide a major boost in terms of port connections and trade. The Three Seas group of nations is seen as a geopolitical counterweight to Western Europe, which has far better transportation and infrastructure, but also greater political weight in the EU.
