Ukraine became participating partner of the Three Seas Initiative
The Three Seas Initiative’s (3SI) member states have granted Ukraine participating partner status to the group and supported its efforts to join the EU — President of Poland Andrzej Duda announced at the 3SI summit in Riga on June 21, 2022.
Unlike a strategic partnership, which links the Three Seas countries with the US, UK, or the European Commission, the new form of partnership is addressed to potential EU member countries. Ukraine is the first country to join, but other countries are also welcome.
“We decided to establish a new, special kind of partnership, other than a strategic partnership,” Duda said. “Today, we granted it to Ukraine, but we believe the same type of partnership may also be granted to other CEE non-EU countries that aspire to the bloc,” he explained, quoted by TVN24 broadcaster.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was invited to participate in the summit as a guest via video link, said that his country should join the Three Seas Initiative, noting that arms deliveries to Ukraine travel through the 3SI member countries.
The Three Seas Initiative was founded in 2016 by Duda and his then Croatian counterpart Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović as a platform of economic cooperation between Central European EU countries. It counts twelve states in the European Union, running along a north-south axis from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic and Black Seas, hence the name.
