The Parliamentary Summit of the Three Seas Initiative will focus on the development of infrastructure projects
Estonian delegation headed by Annely Akkermann, Chair of the Finance Committee of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia), is participating in the Parliamentary Summit of the Three Seas Initiative, which takes place today and tomorrow in Zagreb, Croatia. Akkermann explained that the discussions at the Summit would focus on improving strategic North-South connections.
“The Parliamentary Summit of the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) will address issues related to regional connectivity and greater competitiveness and resilience of 3SI countries,” Akkermann said.
She highlighted the guiding principle of the Three Seas Initiative, which is to overcome the shortfall in infrastructure investment in our region and strengthen North-South connections in the transport, energy, and digital sectors.
“Discussions on budgets and connectivity are taking place in a complex security situation. Prosperity can only flourish where safety and stability prevail,” Akkermann underlined.
In her speech, Akkermann will emphasize the importance of resilience and military mobility, which enable the rapid movement of troops across borders during a crisis. Much of this is practical and for civilian use: rail and road transport capacity, bridge load standards, and interoperability. “Investing wisely in this improves everyday connectivity and reduces the costs of future emergencies,” she noted.
Akkermann said that Estonia welcomes the commitment in the Summit Declaration to strengthen the parliamentary dimension of the Three Seas Initiative in order to deepen cooperation with governments, experts, and business and investment communities.
Estonia’s main and continuing interest is to use the 3SI as a practical tool to reduce the infrastructure investment deficit in our region in cooperation with reliable partners, in order to boost the economy and support security, including military mobility. This cooperation also supports our interests in obtaining co-financing for infrastructure projects within the EU. For Estonia, participation in 3SI has been successful: we contributed 20 million euros to the 3SI Investment Fund (3SIIF) and have received 130 million euros in investments in return.
The priorities of Croatia, the holder of the presidency of 3SI this year, are to boost the region’s resilience and competitiveness through infrastructure development, including connections to southern and eastern transport corridors, as well as to attract new investments to the region. Relations with strategic partners, like the United States and new global partners, have an important role. The practical benefit of the 3SI format is bringing infrastructure issues to the focus of high-level political discussions in order to support the visibility and scope of planned and ongoing infrastructure developments and to attract additional capital to the region.
The Three Seas Initiative (3SI) is a regional cooperation format that connects the countries located between the Adriatic Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, and includes Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The Three Seas Initiative is an important cooperation format for Estonia. In 2020, Estonia was the coordinator of the Three Seas Initiative and hosted the Three Seas Virtual Summit on 19 October 2020 and the meeting of the initiative’s foreign ministers on 30 June 2020. Estonia has also joined the Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund.
The Three Seas Initiative was born in 2015 out of a shared desire to develop transport, energy and digital connections along the European Union’s north-south axis in order to boost the region’s economic growth and resilience.
Web page of the Summit
Riigikogu Press Service
Gunnar Paal
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