Three Seas Initiative in media narration
Expert team of “New Europe” investigated the narration related to The Three Seas Initiative in media of the states, who have presented sceptical attitude towards this Initiative. The analysis includes opinions of experts, journalists and politicians from selected countries. How do they see the three Seas Initiative in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine or Germany?
Basically, the Russian commentators point to American roots of the Three Seas Initiative project and suggest that the Initiative is aimed at the interests of Russian Federation in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. One of the main streams of the Russian narration is an attempt to dismiss the project and show the true intentions of the “states steered by the USA”, which is a part of the Russian strategy to antagonise the relations with widely understood West.
In his article for EurAsia Daily service Wiaczeslaw Samojlow points to a clearly anti-Russian nature of the Three Seas Initiative, which is supported in particular by “paid pro-western opposition in Belarus and Ukraine”. Michail Niejzmakow, a chief analyst of the Agency for Political and Economic Communication (cited by the author) perceives the Three Seas Initiative as A logical continuation of the concept of Intermarium conceived by J. Piłsudski.
The Baltnews service presented an opinion of the retired colonel and head of the Faculty of Political Science of the A. Koszkin Economic University, who thinks that the role of Poland is to secure American interests in the Central Europe region. According to Koszkin, the Three Seas Initiative is an American energy project in Europe, the purpose of which is to cut Russian suppliers of raw materials from the European market.
What do they write about the Three Seas Initiative in Belarus? Practically, none of the Belarussian analysts and experts, perceive the Three Seas Initiative as an economic platform but rather as a political-military alliance driven by energy-political interests of the USA AND Russophobia strongly rooted in the member states. Undoubtedly, most Belarussian analysts and authors writing about the Three Seas Initiative, perceives it mainly as a string puppet steered by the United States. Washington – properly leading Poland – strive for lobbying for distribution of American LNG gas and hindering German-Russian relations.
Ukrainian news websites consider lack of Ukraine in the Three Seas Initiative as a diplomatic mistake and ignoring the Ukrainian state by the West. On the other hand, it seems that the media find the reason for this situation in external influence of Germany and particularly negative attitude of the Three Seas Initiative states to Ukrainian presence in the Initiative due to the fact they do not want to worsen their own relations with Russia.
Despite favourability of German media to the Three Seas Initiative, Germany is sceptical about the two states especially engaged in the Three Seas Initiative, i.e. the United States and Poland. The conflict over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline (which clearly divided the members of the Three Seas Initiative and their allies) seems to be a catalyst for shaping this attitude in Germany.
(source: Institute of New Europe)
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