The Three Seas And Europe’s Future
There are two key avenues for cementing the Three Seas Initiative as a European priority and advancing American interests.
European states buttressed by the Adriatic, Baltic, and Black Seas hold the key to the security, prosperity, and global engagement of a strong and resilient Europe. European leaders with strong American backing should articulate a fitting vision and strategy to achieve this outcome at the upcoming Three Seas Initiative Summit in Poland in April. The Three Seas Initiative (3SI), championed by Polish president Andrzej Duda, received strong support from President Donald Trump during his first term.
Now, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk must seize the opportunity to engage President Trump and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to prioritize the initiative. Poland should engage the 3SI member states and the European Commission to announce a bold and expanded vision that serves both European and American interests by inviting Trump to the summit. The economic and military significance of east-central Europe is on the rise. 3SI is an opportune vehicle to realize the region’s growing import across Eurasia optimally. Tusk can build on Duda’s legacy in elevating 3SI to a priority European project.
There are two key avenues for cementing 3SI as a European priority and advancing American interests. First, establish 3SI as the primary conduit for constructing military mobility corridors to buttress NATO’s forward posture along an expanded front from Finland to Romania. An expedited assessment should be conducted among NATO, the European Commission, and 3SI member states to demarcate and prioritize key infrastructure and transport corridors that offer the highest economic and security dividends.
Central to this vision is improved road and rail connections that would link NATO’s front lines to the region’s economic hinterlands and the three key ports of Trieste on the Adriatic, Gdańsk on the Baltic, and Constanța on the Black Sea. This bolstered interconnectedness would connect the three seas and enhance deterrence against Russia. Moreover, it would be indispensable to the reconstruction and security of a post-war Ukraine. In so doing, 3SI integrates Ukraine’s recovery within Europe’s broader security and economic framework and firmly establishes itself as the fulcrum of regional stability and prosperity.
Second, institute 3SI—in close coordination with the European Commission—as the primary launchpad for the European Global Gateway initiative. That way, trusted connectivity with adjoining regions to the south, east, and north can be achieved. To the south, the Global Gateway-3SI region through Trieste connects to burgeoning Indo-Mediterranean trade driven by the world’s fastest-growing large economy, India, along with the Gulf states and Israel.
A reinvigorated 3SI coupled with the India-Middle East-European Economic Corridor (IMEC) is well positioned to usher in a “New Golden Road” that can drive Indo-European trade and commerce to new heights in the twenty-first century. President Trump recently announced that he and Prime Minister Modi have “agreed to work together to help build one of the greatest trade routes in all of the history—running from India to Israel to Italy and onwards to the U.S.—connecting our partners, roads, railways and undersea cables.”
To the east, the three sea regions connect with the Caucasus, Caspian Sea, and Central Asia. It is timely to memorialize this historic connection in a modern arrangement similar to IMEC, i.e., by establishing a Central Asia-Caucasus-Europe Economic Corridor (CACE). The European Global Gateway project boasts subsea digital and power lines across the Black Sea to the Caucasus as one of its flagship projects. CACE stands to elevate freedom of navigation in the Black Sea and indemnify Ukrainian coastal integrity. CACE embodies the most practical outlet for Central Asia and the Caucasus to connect with Europe and the free and open world. It would be symbolic and timely for the leading CACE nations to announce the initiative in Warsaw.
To the north, the three-seas region connects to a renewed configuration of Baltic and Arctic NATO member states—the Free North. The regional states are experiencing a heightened urgency for greater coordination in advancing shared security and economic interests from the Gulf of Finland to the Gulf of Alaska. The changing weather patterns and greater accessibility to mineral resources offer new opportunities and perils across the high north. The region is projected to experience greater commerce and connectivity with a high premium on securing critical infrastructure and expedited production of ice-cutting civil and naval vessels. 3SI is well positioned to be the bulwark for greater transatlantic cooperation across the Free North.
3SI is enhancing connectivity between adjoining regions of high geopolitical and geoeconomic importance. It serves both as the anchor and the vanguard for European Global Gateway efforts. Greater internal cohesion and resilience will empower its regional outreach even further. The upcoming 3SI Summit offers a propitious platform not only to expand 3SI’s vision but also to increase membership. 3SI should endeavor to include all major European littoral nations of the three seas, in particular Italy and Ukraine. With these two additions—the fifteen-member 3SI becomes an indispensable regional actor in shaping the future of European security and prosperity.
The initiative must also secure an appropriate financial structure to execute its expanded vision by leveraging its members and close partners. The primary objective is to attract private institutional investors to infrastructure projects. A combination of matching sovereign funds, advantageous financing, and investment credit assurances could substantially augment 3SI infrastructure as desirable investments.
Member states may consider a 3SI-NATO Fund with earmarked budgetary contributions to leverage matching private funds in constructing dual-use military mobility corridors. With strong U.S. and EU backing, 3SI may request a dedicated 3SI-G7 working group, constituted from the respective development finance corporations, to offer collective and coordinated financing and credit assurances to qualified private investors in regional infrastructure projects.
The collective impact of the 3SI’s expanded vision and membership stands to be monumental. If optimally executed, the above strategy may transform Eastern Europe to a degree comparable to what the Marshall Plan achieved for Western Europe. Presidents Trump and von der Leyen—along with Prime Minister Tusk and President Duda—may well view the opportunity as one of their finest legacies in strengthening Europe and the transatlantic alliance.
Kaush Arha is President of the Free & Open Indo-Pacific Forum and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue.
Slawomir Debski is the Professor of Strategy at the College of Europe in Natolin, Warsaw.
Tiit Riisalo is the former Minister of Economy and Technology of Estonia.
Image: Faraways / Shutterstock.com.