Bulgarian presidency in the Three Seas Initiative
During the Three Seas Initiative summit in Tallin, held on 19th October 2020, the Republic of Bulgaria, represented by the President Rumen Radev, officially took over the presidency in the Initiative. Apart from the President of Bulgaria, President of the Republic of Poland also participated in the summit. Representatives of other countries took part in the event remotely.
Due to the Bulgarian presidency, the upcoming summit of the Three Seas Initiative will be held in June 2021 in Sofia. Originally, there were some arguments to postpone the summit to 2022 due to election in this country, but finally a decision was taken to organise it in 2021. As part of preparation for the summit, at the end of January, there was held an online working meeting on the level of administration of presidents and foreign affairs ministries from the states of the Three Seas Initiative. Earlier on, there had been a videoconference of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Vice-minister for foreign affairs of Bulgaria Ekaterina Zaharievej with the Coordinator of the Government of the Republic of Poland for the Three Seas Initiative Paweł Jabłoński.
Participation in the Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund is of great importance to Bulgaria. The Bulgarian Development Bank contributed EUR 20 million to the Fund. The Bulgarian government is mainly interested in infrastructure projects, such as reconstruction of the Ruse-Varna railway line or investments on the route of the IV Pan-European Transport Corridor.
During the summit in Tallin, President Radev declared that the Bulgarian presidency will propose new areas of cooperation within the Three Seas Initiative, in particular science and education connectivity. He highlighted that infrastructure investments are not enough to develop economy if they are not related to cooperation with researchers, scientists and universities. New topics will be dealt with along with cooperation fields defined earlier on, such as the above mentioned transport and energy infrastructure and digital connectivity.
“Bulgaria will continue further on the ambitious path of releasing the capacity of the Initiative as a genuine tool for regional cooperation and accelerated development of our region through improving the energy, transport and digital connectivity”
President of the Republic of Bulgaria Rumen Radev
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