Abstract
The chapter is devoted to the Three Seas Initiative's enlarged internal and external surroundings, after joining Greece. There were evaluated various issues related to the changes in inner and outer areas of the world potentially related to the 3SI region. There was also an analysis the probable role of the Hellenic Republic in developing the Three Seas format in national, bilateral, and multilateral concrete projects, and also particular point infrastructure investments in transport, energy, and digitalization. In conclusion, they were given the most significant issues. The author also explained the proposed action of the development of the internal Three Seas undertakings, and plenty of ones directed to the surrounding areas. The purposes of the chapter – considering the broad range of the extended inner and outer neighborhood of the 3SI partnership, and the influence on the further development of this regional format – were reached and included for the first time in this monography.
TopIntroduction
At the 8th Three Seas Summit in Bucharest on 6-7 September 2023, Greece joined the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) – a format of regional cooperation in Central and Eastern, and South and Eastern Europe. This partnership, grounded in 2015 and consisting of 13 countries (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece), is to develop international projects in transport, energy and digital aspects. Joining Greece to the Three Seas Initiative changes the surrounding neighborhood of this area in land borders and maritime ones (because of getting access by Three Seas with the Mediterranean, Ionian, and Aegean Seas). It is boned with the 3SI region in constructing some potential transregional infrastructural investments signing in the over-regional dimension of the Three Seas. In this article, there will be analyzed some issues related to the change of the internal and external environment of the Three Seas Initiative after joining Greece of Western Balkan (especially Albania and North Macedonia), some Mediterranean countries (Turkey, Cyprus, Israel), African (Egypt and other ones), Gulf (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates) and Asian states (India, China). There will be research on the importance of Greece in the transregional projects of the Three Seas including the states mentioned above. Moreover, the attention will be focused on analyzing potentially the most and least priority, and the least realistic over-regional development directions for the Three Seas Initiative. It will also examine the priorities of Greece in developing transregional investments with the mentioned states within the Three Seas Initiative projects.
Figure 1. Member countries of the three seas initiative (state of the 2023 after joining Greece at the Bucharest Summit)
TopExplication
Key Terms in this Chapter
Three Seas Initiative: An economic regional format of cooperation in Central and South and Eastern Europe created in 2015 to boost the cooperation between member countries. Simultaneously, there are used other terms to name this form of collaboration, for example, Three Seas, Three Seas format, 3SI and 3SI partnership. In need to maintain an organized structure of the publication, and to give the most important and reliable pieces of information regards this form of cooperation, the description of it was included in other parts of the chapter.
Regional: It refers mainly to the internal area of the Three Seas, including only the member states.
Connection: It means the linking between some particular countries throughout the line infrastructural elements, for example with corridors, routes, roads, railways, railroads, highways, motorways and interconnectors, which terms are used in the article regarding transport, energy and digital lines.
Multilateral: It describes the relation between almost three or more specific countries in numerous combinations.
Transregional: It concerns the potential connections between 3SI and its bordering neighborhood. This term is sometimes replaced with the word “over-regional.”
Bilateral: It defines the relation between two distinct states in various configurations.
Infrastructure: It covers the cooperation in transport, energy and digital dimensions.