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Projects proposed by Romania at the Summit of the Initiative of the Three Seas
Economically, the Initiative of the Three Seas means 28% of the European GDP worth 1,400 billion euro, for 114 million inhabitants. Even if in the area there were built over the last 20 years about 5,600 km of highways, it is still necessary, according to some international studies to have almost 615 billion euro for investments in infrastructure and logistics to get to the level of the western countries. In general, the big corridors of transport were placed in the direction east-west, so that the infrastructure under discussion within the initiative of the Three Seas which unite the north and the south of the continent cannot be considered but welcomed.
Two big infrastructure projects have been until now on the agenda of the initiative,it is about the network of highways Via Charpatia and a transport project for liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Via Charpatia should link the Lituanian harbour Klaipeda to Thessaloniki.The highway would go through Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania (where there is a connection to Constanta harbour), Bulgaria and Greece and will include highways already existent in Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.
The project for LNG involves a gas terminal in Poland which is already operational in the Baltic harbour Swinoujscie and a second one which will be finalised next year in Croatia on the Krk island. The distribution pipelines will link the member countries of the initiative and the project is an alternative to the Russian gas which many member states of the Three Seas projects depend on.
Another business area which the project concentrates on is digitalisation which is on the agenda of the discussions in Bucharest. Even if at present nine out of the 12 member states of the initiative are under the EU average of Digital Economy and Society Index there are already analysts who speak about digital highways , data islands, even a fleet of intelligent driver-less cars which in 2035 could link Tallin to Zagreb.
Romania will propose at the summit in Bucharest of the Initiative which started on Monday other projects among which ‘Rail 2 Sea’ which refers to a railway of 3.663 km from the harbour of Gdansk to Constanta. In the digital domain Romania offers, among other things, the idea of the creation of a platform for the monitoring in real time of the waters in the water basins in the region which will offer the possibility of identifying the polluting factors as well as risk analysis development. A second project aims at the creation of an intelligent digital platform for the trading of the transport and logistics services while the third proposal of Romania refers to the definition and development of a road map towards a digitalised sustainable energy sector and the creation of a digital platform in the domain of energy storage.
In the domain of transport Romania proposes the project FAIRway Danube for the rehabilitation and maintenance of the Danube navigable canal and its tributaries. For energy, Romania is interested in the development of the national gas transport on the corridor BRUA.
For the financing of the projects, the Three Seas officials decided to set up an investment fund worth 100 billion euro, an initiative of the Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego, the national Polish bank for development. The bank will collaborate with 11 banking institutions in the area of the initiative, a letter of intent being signed in Bucharest according to the information in the international press.The fund will start to work next year and it will have no headquarters, the board of directors meeting in turn in the member countries.
For sure, economy without a bit of geopolicy is impossible, so that it is necessary to say that the projects of the Initiative got to the attention of the United States and China which study the way in which they could get the initiative Three Seas to the project One Belt One Road.
On the other hand, Europe is caught in a game of interests focusing on natural gas where the actors – Germany, Russia, the eastern countries, Ukraine, the United States do and undo pipes, contracts and alliances. The LNG project of the Initiative Three Seas is capable to influence the European market and this is one of the keys which make it clear why Germany wants to get into the alliance and why the welcoming approach of the US.