NEWS

President Radev called on the Countries from the Three Seas Initiative for Providing Concrete Investment Dimensions of the Connectivity Projects

The Three Seas regional initiative starts to leave the sphere of political talking and acquires more concrete dimensions with the idea of creating an investment fund. My call to all participants today is to more quickly move to the sphere of economy and concrete solutions. This is what President Rumen Radev said on the occasion of his participation in the presidential panel of the Fourth top-level meeting of the Three Seas regional initiative, which was held in Slovenia. The Bulgarian president is in Ljubljana at the invitation of his Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahor, who is host of the forum.

The Three Seas initiative was created in 2015 and united 12 EU member states, located between the Adriatic, Baltic and Black sea and its aim is to promote the transport, energy and digital connectivity in the region by implementing joint projects. “The main priority of this initiative is to improve the conditions for an economic and social development in the East-European countries by ensuring greater connectivity in all dimensions – transport, digital, energy,” the Head of State said in Ljubljana.

The President welcomed the intention to create an Investment fund for the Three seas initiative, which was announced at the Third top-level meeting in Bucharest. “Bulgaria has not signed yet the Memorandum for initiating this fund, only six countries have signed it. We would like clear principles for forming the capital, clear criteria for identifying the priority projects, which would also serve our national interest,” Rumen Radev said.

The Head of State noted that currently there is no specifically concrete funding of the joint regional projects, approved by the initiative. “”This is the great goal of Three Seas – apart from the standard financial EU instruments, other roads for financing these projects should be sought,” the Head of State said.

Last year three Bulgarian projects were approved by the initiative as priority projects – the restoration of the project parameters of the Ruse-Varna railway, the construction of a tunnel under the Petrohan passage and the expansion of the gas storage in the village of Chiren. The President emphasized that the proposed Bulgarian projects have been coordinated with the Bulgarian government. “There is one more project I strongly insist on, I hold talks on and see a positive attitude by all presidents concerned – this is the transport corridor Via Carpatia.” The route starts in Lithuania and passes through Bulgaria, reaching Greek ports and thus it connects a couple of countries in the north-south direction. “If we manage to include this project as one of the most priority ones, because it ensures a great connectivity, we will solve the problem with the not yet built 160 kilometers of highway from Vidin to Sofia,” Rumen Radev said.

Today the Bulgarian Head of State took part in a discussion within the presidential panel of the forum together with the presidents of Slovenia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and also representatives of Slovakia and Hungary and US Energy Minister Rick Perry.  The topic of the discussion is dedicated to the challenges the EU is facing in the region between the Adriatic, Baltic and Black sea.

The delegation led by President Radev includes Economy ?inister Emil Karanikolov, and also representatives of the Bulgarian business, participating in the economic forum, accompanying the top-level meeting in Ljubljana. Participation in the business forum have declared a total of 500 representatives of the private sector, of the governments of the participating countries in the initiative, and also representatives of the European institutions both in the US and Germany.

The top-level meeting will be attended by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, senior representatives of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, of the European Investment Bank.