How will Italy move between the three seas of Eastern Europe?
Three Seas Initiative, is Rome looking east? This is why Italy must adopt a strategy towards Eastern Europe. Francis Walsingham's analysis
Last week was an intense week of international meetings. In fact, in addition to the G20 in India , the eighth summit of the " Three Seas Initiative " (3SI) was held in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, complete with speeches by the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the climate envoy of President of the United States , John Kerry, who in 2004 was a candidate in the 2004 presidential elections, losing to George W. Bush .
What is the Three Seas Initiative?
The Three Seas Initiative is a political platform bringing together 12 EU Member States in Central and Eastern Europe between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic Seas. It includes Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. At this year's 3SI summit , the membership of Greece was announced, while Ukraine and Moldova became associated states, according to the Joint Declaration of the Three Seas Initiative in Bucharest. Strategic partners and supporters of 3SI are the European Commission, Germany, and the United States, which contribute one billion dollars to the 3SI infrastructure fund.
Finally Italy
Apart from some attempts in the first years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, since the mid-1990s Italy has never had a structured strategy towards Eastern Europe, or even towards the countries of the Adriatic mare nostrum. However, the renewed Russian risk and the notable growth of the central-eastern economies have turned on a light bulb in the offices of the Meloni Government, which for the first time has sent its own representative to the 3SI Business Forum.
Speaking for Italy in Bucharest was Valentino Valentini , Deputy Minister of Business and Made In Italy, a man historically close to former president Berlusconi. In his speech , in a panel on energy together with the Croatian Minister of Economy and the Romanian Minister of Energy, Valentini explained how Italy and its companies can play a fundamental role in the infrastructural development of the region and in the reconstruction of the Ukraine once the criminal war unleashed by Russia is over, working with “ heart and commitment for our collective future .” A speech received very positively by the international audience present in Bucharest, who look at Italy with great attention.
Why was the Three Seas Initiative established?
Founded in 2015 on the initiative of Polish President Andrzej Duda and the then Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, the original reason for establishing 3SI was cooperation aimed at developing infrastructure in the region. One of the structural problems of the former Warsaw Pact countries is in fact a system of motorway, railway, energy and telecommunications infrastructures all developed from an east-west perspective, according to the direction given by the then Soviet Union. A legacy that limits the development of countries in reality with similar interests and problems, but completely disconnected from each other except for borders, but which in recent years have had " the most dynamic economic development among all European economic regions " , as stated by President Duda at the 3SI Business Forum last week. Among the most important projects carried out to date by 3SI are the Via Carpatia , which runs from Lithuania to Thessaloniki, and the Baltica railway which connects Warsaw and Helsinki via Riga and Tallinn. On the energy side, however, there is space for regasifiers in Poland and Lithuania to encourage the diversification of energy sources, but the list of projects is very long (some 50-70% financed by the EU Commission). Infrastructural projects which obviously also affect digital, and it is not for nothing that the presence of multinationals such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and IBM was large in Bucharest.
The Russian threat and the partnership with Ukraine and Moldova
Another reason for the development of the initiative was the growing threat from Russia and the dependence of member states on Russian energy imports. Furthermore, the members of the initiative have intended over time to give greater weight to their political interests within the EU. Although Three Seas Initiative countries make up around 25% of both the EU's surface area and population, they only account for just over 10% of its gross national product. Russia's invasion of Ukraine shifted the initiative's economic policy priorities, placing security at the center of attention. In response to Russia's aggression, and hence the requests for membership by Ukraine and Moldova, also in view of their future entry into the EU.
From the Intermarium to De Michelis' Central European Initiative
Already in the 1930s, attempts were made to establish a similar type of forum. Then Poland tried for the second time to forge an alliance of several countries between the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the Adriatic. Intermarium – as the project was known – was supposed to be a geostrategic platform that would provide protection against both Stalin's communist Soviet Union and Hitler's Nazi Germany, but the plan failed. More recently, the Central European Initiative (In.CE, or CEI in English ), born from an idea of the former socialist minister Gianni De Michelis, which is the oldest and most extensive regional cooperation forum in Central Europe , Eastern and Balkan, based in Trieste, a city chosen for its cosmopolitan vocation. It was started on 11 November 1989 by Italy, Hungary, Austria and Yugoslavia – which gave life to the "Quadrangular" – with the aim, once the Berlin Wall had fallen, of overcoming the division into blocs and starting cooperative relations between states of different political and economic orientation. Czechoslovakia and Poland were added respectively in 1990 and 1991: the now “Hexagonal” was renamed the Central European Initiative in 1992, with the subsequent entry of other countries in the region, now 17 in total. The main mission of the In.CE is to promote cohesion and assist member states, in particular those outside the European Union, in their path of economic, political and social consolidation, with projects also financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. However, its political weight has been declining in recent years.
The moment of choices
After Valentini's speech in Bucharest, many people hope that Italy can play a different and more important role in the region, and the debate will start in the next few days with a conference organized in Rome on 18 September by the Centro Studi Machiavelli – close to the League , as confirmed by the presence of the deputy Guglielmo Picchi – together with the American conservative think tank Heritage Foundation , on which, however, clouds of ties have gathered recently with think tanks close to Orban and Russia, which are certainly not appreciated in the other member countries of the Three Seas Initiative, Poland and the Baltics first and foremost. A possible membership of Italy in the 3SI could be put on the agenda for next year, but certainly the issue will first have to be examined by Foreign Minister Tajani and President Meloni, who however will have to act quickly given Greece's activism of Prime Minister Mitsotakis. Greece returned to a central role after the years of austerity with the aim of positioning itself as a trans-Mediterranean power in the role of center of connectivity from Europe to Africa and from Europe to the Middle East, especially with the creation of India in sight -Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) launched by India, USA, Saudi Arabia and Israel in the latest G20.
Italy weighs heavily in the EU
Not only. Eastern Europe does not currently lead any of the main EU institutions: the Commission, the European Council or the European Parliament, although the balance of power in Europe has shifted a lot eastward since the invasion of Ukraine by of Russia. Proportional representation in Parliament actually means that the largest countries – France, Germany and Italy – have the most power in terms of votes. Even if all the Nordic, Baltic and Central European countries voted as a bloc – a coalition on which they are starting to work, as demonstrated by the "Dutch Coalition" and the D9+ group on digital issues – they would still have fewer votes (191) than just to France, Germany and Italy (251). This means that Italy could really become the tipping point in the next EU legislature if the Government started to look east (and north), putting its own needs on the table (for example flexibility on the stability pact) in exchange for the own decisive support, thus overcoming the historical bond – sometimes vassal – towards France.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/iniziativa-tre-mari/ on Mon, 11 Sep 2023 05:55:41 +0000.