The Three Seas Initiative is an international political and economic project inaugurated by the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, and the President of Croatia, Kolinde Grabar-Kitarović. Three Seas Initiative (TSI) was launched in 2015 and aims to promote cooperation between 12 countries including Poland. Polish President Andrzej Duda called the initiative “a new concept to promote Europe’s unity and cohesion… an idea of cooperation among 12 countries located between the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Seas, the three seas of Central Europe.”
The project involves countries located between the Adriatic Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. These are: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and also Hungary. The main goals of this initiative are to strengthen political and economic cooperation between the countries of the region. The most important areas of the Three Seas Initiative are energy, transport, digital communication and security.
TSI has a big impact on the region and is a return of geopolitical project conceived by politicians in successor states of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
What is worth emphasizing is the importance of the initiative for all members of the alliance. Initiative creates an environment in which countries are able to cooperate. The main assumptions are: connectivity, commerciality, complementarity. The initiative connects partners in a field of energy, transport issue, digital communication and international security.
The IMF has released a report showing that states in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe have EUR 1.15 trillion gap in infrastructure investments compared to Western Europe. The Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund will be a part of the solution to the problem.
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The Polish Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy informed about priority projects from the point of view of equalizing the level of economic development in the region to the standards of Western Europe. These programs are:
There is a lot of projected for the sector of new technologies – “Digital Highway of the Three Seas Initiative”, i.e. a project assuming the construction of a cross-border digital infrastructure allowing for safe data transmission from the north to the south of the region using optical fibers and 5G technology. The project involves the participation of all countries of the initiative and was submitted by Poland
In the field of transport – “Via Carpatia”, a road running through the territory of Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece and ultimately connecting Lithuanian Klaipeda with the Greek city of Thessaloniki. A project that has a chance to be one of the main European transport routes in the future, submitted jointly by Hungary, Poland and Romania.
In the energy sector – the “North-South gas corridor” that connects the LNG terminal in Świnoujście with the Adria LNG terminal in Croatia. The investment is extremely important, as the priority for the Three Seas region is to diversify gas supply sources and integrate gas infrastructure.
Adrian Misiak
