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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo:Washington to finance energy projects to reduce central and eastern Europe's dependence on Russian gas
Foreign Affairs Minister Bogdan Aurescu attended on Saturday, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, the round table on the Three Seas Initiative, on which occasion he welcomed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's announcement on the allocation by the United States of one billion US dollars for investments in energy projects under the Three Seas Initiative, informs a press release of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE).
„As a brand new statement today of our support for sovereignty, prosperity, and energy independence of our European friends, today I want to announce that through the International Development Finance Corporation, and with the support of our United States Congress, we intend to provide up to $1 billion in financing to Central and Eastern European countries of the Three Seas Initiative. Our aim is quite simple: It is to galvanize private sector investment in the energy sector to protect freedom and democracy around the world”, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, according to the U.S. Department of State press release.
On this occasion, Minister Aurescu said that the Initiative maintains its pragmatic character, focused on the implementation of projects of major interest for the region and for Romania. In this context, he reiterated the Romanian Government's commitment to the defining principles and objectives of the Initiative, as well as the active role that Bucharest will play in furthering the development of I3M.
"The Three Seas Initiative was designed to meet our essential needs, at regional level, and to contribute to help accelerate the development of the region, by stimulating connectivity between the participating states. (...). The Bucharest Summit, successfully hosted in 2018, by the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, contributed substantially to the development and crystallization of the Initiative's objectives, and the set of validated instruments was then meant to facilitate and accelerate the implementation of major interconnection projects in the region. Today we can definitely say that the initiative is moving forward solidly and is starting to produce results," the head of the Romanian diplomacy said in Munich.
The Romanian official also welcomed the announcement made on Saturday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo regarding the allocation of 1 billion US dollars for investments in energy projects under the Three Seas Initiative, as an important signal of the United States' concrete interest and support for the Initiative.
According to the cited source, in this context Minister Bogdan Aurescu recalled the important decisions and results adopted and obtained by the Bucharest Summit (the list of priority interconnection projects, the first edition of the Business Forum, the launch of the Chamber of Commerce network, the initiation of the Investment Fund's establishment), as well as the steps recorded in the operationalization of the Initiative's Investment Fund, as well as the priority to be given to the efficient financing and implementation of the priority interconnection projects.
The roundtable "The Three Seas Initiative: Completing Europe in an Era of Great Power Competition" was organized by the Atlantic Council of the United States (ACUS), on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. Other speakers included Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid and US Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette.
In his address, the head of Romanian diplomacy also welcomed the organization of this event by ACUS, bringing to mind, in context, the support enjoyed by the Three Seas Initiative from the renowned American think-tank, including its contribution to the success of the first Business Forum of the Three Seas Initiative (I3M), organized in Bucharest in 2018, on the occasion of the Initiative's Third Summit, highlights the MAE release.
Moreover, Minister Aurescu welcomed Estonia's efforts to host, in June 2020, a new Summit of the Initiative and the third edition of the I3M Business Forum. He expressed Romania's full support for the success of the events hosted by Estonia, stressing the importance of obtaining new concrete results in this context and encouraging the continuation of the pragmatic, results-based approach, within the Initiative, the press release further mentions.
The Three Seas Initiative is a flexible and informal political platform, at presidential level, that brings together the 12 EU member states from the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Seas (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia). The Initiative aims to increase convergence and cohesion, in parallel with reducing the economic development gap between different EU areas and member states, by increasing interconnectivity in the region, in the fields of energy, transport and digital.
The key principles of the Three Seas Initiative are: promoting economic development, increasing cohesion at European level and strengthening transatlantic ties.