President Klaus Iohannis will host a new summit of the Three Seas Initiative (I3M) at the Kotrochen Palace on Wednesday, an event where Greece will become the 13th member state of this political platform, and Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova will receive the status of associated participating states. The I3M business forum will be held on the sidelines of the summit, and Cholaku will meet with officials from companies such as Apple, Amazon and IBM in the government.

Summit of the Three Seas Initiative, which took place on Wednesday in Kotrochen

On Wednesday, September 6, 2023, President Klaus Iohannis will host the 8th Summit of the Three Seas Initiative (I3M) at Kotrocen Palace.

Representatives of all 12 participating countries of the Initiative (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, as well as the host country Romania) will take part in the high-level event, I3M’s strategic partners (the United States, European Commission and Germany), a number of special guests (Greece, Ukraine, Republic of Moldova, Japan, Great Britain, France, Turkey), as well as representatives of important international organizations (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, International Monetary Fund, World Bank).

On the sidelines of the Summit, on Thursday, September 7, the Romanian government will organize a new I3M business forum under the patronage of President Klaus Iohannis.

• See the program of the Three Seas Initiative summit here

During the work of the Summit, President Klaus Iohannis will present the results of the mandate of Romania at the head of I3M (June 2022 – September 2023), also reflected in the Joint Declaration of the Summit, which will be adopted at the end of the discussions. .

It will become an important reference point for the future activities of I3M, focusing on the directions of action for the development of cross-border interconnections in the field of transport infrastructure, energy and digitalization, as well as for the consolidation and diversification of the financial instruments of the Initiative.

Greece will become the 13th member of I3M. Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova are associated member states

By adopting the Bucharest Declaration, Greece will become the 13th member state of the Initiative, and Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova will receive the status of member states associated with I3M.

• “The President of Romania will emphasize that a year and a half after the beginning of Russia’s brutal and illegal aggression against Ukraine, I3M has confirmed the validity of its concept and the relevance of the implementation of its goals, in the current geopolitical context, this platform of high-level political dialogue has become an important tool for strengthening regional and European stability.
• President Klaus Iohannis will also encourage the development of new tools and partnerships to catalyze investment in I3M’s priority projects, including through the creation of a new investment fund that will continue the fund launched at the Bucharest Summit in 2018, and exploring the most effective ways to create the Initiative’s Innovation Fund.” , This is stated in the press release of Cotroceni.

On the occasion of the Summit, the list of strategic priority projects will also be updated, the first such list was launched on the occasion of the previous Summit in Bucharest.

Romania is the first I3M member country to host the Initiative’s summit for the second time, following the successful one held by the President of Romania in Bucharest on September 17-18, 2018.

During the first Summit in Bucharest, important decisions regarding the future of the Initiative were made, such as:

• approval of the list of main priority interconnection projects in the fields of transport, energy and digital technologies;
• organization of the first business forum of the Three Seas Initiative;
• launching a network of I3M chambers of commerce and industry (by signing the Joint Declaration on the creation of this network);
• initiating the procedure for launching the Investment Fund of the Three Seas Initiative (by signing the Letter of Intent regarding its creation).

Cholaku will meet on Wednesday with Maya Sandu and John Kerry, as well as representatives of Apple, Amazon and IBM

Prime Minister Marcel Çolaku will meet with the President of the Republic of Moldova Maia Sandu, as well as with John Kerry, the special emissary of the US President on climate issues, as well as with representatives of the American company Apple, in the Victoria Palace on Wednesday. , Amazon and IBM. The meetings take place within the framework of the organization of the Three Seas Initiative (I3M) Summit and the I3M Business Forum in Bucharest on September 6-7, 2023.

Prime Minister Çolaku will meet on Wednesday with the President of the Republic of Moldova Maia Sandu from 10:00 a.m., and a meeting with John Kerry is scheduled for 2:00 p.m.

Also on Wednesday, the Prime Minister will hold separate meetings with Sébastien Gross, Apple’s director of government affairs in Europe, Michael Panke, Amazon’s vice president of global public policy, David N. Barnes, IBM’s vice president of global workforce policy , by John Hopkins, CEO of NuScale Power, Raymond Gagnier, President of the Senate of Canada and Georgios Stassis, CEO of Public Power Corporation (PPC).

The business forum of the 3 Seas Initiative – “Investments in a sustainable tomorrow”, organized by the Government of Romania under the high patronage of the President of Romania, will be held on Thursday, September 7, in the Palace of the Parliament and will bring together more than 1,000 businessmen, government officials, experts, representatives of civil society.

• See the agenda of the I3M forum here

Prime Minister Marcel Čolaku will open the business forum, which will be attended by high-ranking officials: President of Romania Klaus Iohannis, President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda, co-initiator country 3 Maritime Initiative, Prime Minister of Croatia Andrej Plenkovic, co-initiator country of the Initiative of the Three Seas, President of Latvia Edgars Rinkevičs, the country that hosted last year’s Three Seas Summit and Forum, President of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda, the country that will host the Three Seas Initiative Summit and Business Forum in 2024.

The special guest of the business forum is John Kerry, the special emissary of the President of the United States of America on climate issues.

The high-level meeting will be accompanied by four panels on priority topics both from the point of view of the European Union and transatlantic relations: energy, transport, digitalization, investments.

The purpose of the I3M business forum is to stimulate investment in infrastructure on the North-South axis and reconfiguration of neighborly relations in the region, especially in the context of numerous and long-lasting violations caused by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

Romania, as a member state of the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance, focuses its main strategic priorities in the energy sector – with an emphasis on the green transition and the use of hydrogen as a source of renewable energy – the development of railways and road transport networks, as well as the challenges of the future in terms of digitalization in the field of cyber security and artificial intelligence implementation security.

The initiative of the three seas (Baltic, Black and Adriatic) is a flexible and informal political platform that unites 12 member states of the European Union located between the three mentioned seas – Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia. , Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The Forum will also be attended by strategic partners who support the Three Seas Initiative: the European Commission, Germany and the USA, as well as special guests and representatives of relevant international organizations.