President of Latvia Egils Levits addressed the participants of the Three Seas Business Forum held in Sofia (Bulgaria) on the 8 July. In his Speech, President Levits highlighted how Three Seas Initiative (3SI) accelerates digital, energy and transport connectivity between the northern and southern parts of the European Union (EU).
Egils Levits urged international financial institutions and private investors to join the 3SI Investment Fund, which is a vehicle for implementation of politically inspired and commercially viable projects. According to President Levits, Rail Baltica is a good example of such projects. He also encouraged investors to consider Latvia’s 5G developments. President of Latvia invited forum participants to ‘5G techritory’ , a conference taking place this November in Riga and also said there is a need to engage broader groups of society in the implementation of 3SI, especially the scientific community.
He thanked Bulgaria for hosting this year’s summit and announced that Latvia is ready to host the 2022 Three Seas Summit and Business Forum.
Presidents or high-level representatives of all 12 participating EU member states presented their national positions at the Sofia Business Forum. List of speakers also included interventions by 3SI strategic partners: US President Joe Biden (video message), President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Margrethe Vestager. Other high-profile speakers included Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.
Latvia was represented at the Three Seas Summit and Business Forum by President Levits and a business delegation coordinated by the Latvian Investment and Development Agency.
Tomorrow, on 9 July, 3SI summit will resume with a presidential panel discussion on geopolitical scope and significance of the Initiative.
You can follow the Three Seas Summit and Business Forum online at https://3seas.eu/.
Background
The aim of the Three Seas Summit and Business Forum is to promote direct cooperation for implementation of flagship 3SI transport, energy and digital projects.
Three Seas Initiative was founded on 25 August 2016 during the first Three Seas Summit in Croatia by 12 European Union member states: Latvia, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. United States of America, Germany and European Commission have joined the initiative as partner countries. There have already been five such summits: in Croatia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Estonia. The sixth, this year’s summit of the leaders is hosted by Bulgaria.