Three Seas Initiative (3SI) Summit and Business Forum, which will take place in Riga this June, was introduced today at the Riga Castle by the 3SI Civil Society Forum, a fundamentally new platform for the exchange of ideas and knowledge between civil society actors from 3SI countries proposed by the President of Latvia Egils Levits.
‘Fundamental principles of the Three Seas Initiative are unique. It is politically inspired and economically motivated. 3SI seeks to identify common regional priorities supported by its 12 member states, which are also members states of the European Union. Priorities based on shared past and vision of the future,’ President Levits stressed in his opening remarks.
President of Latvia referred to our region’s history, which gives us much clearer understanding of threats faced by democracies. It also makes us feel more united with Ukraine. ‘Military assistance to Ukraine is not a charity. Ukrainians do not have to thank us for that in any special way. We help Ukraine because we need it. Ukraine should not lose this war. It must win it,’ Egils Levits said.
President of Latvia underlined that 3SI shall support the development of digital, energy and transport connectivity in the region and also strengthen the people-to-people contacts between our countries, thus ‘activities of the civic society will play an important role in the Three Seas Initiative’.
Egils Levits hopes that Civil Society Forum will become a new tradition of the Three Seas Initiative platform.
Throughout the day participants of the forum continued discussions about connectivity, digital transformation, security and governance in the 3SI region. Aim of these parallel sessions was to identify potential areas of cooperation, challenges and on-going projects. Civil society organisations also worked on recommendations to the 3SI leaders, which will feed into the agenda of the 3SI Summit and Business Forum on 20-21 June 2022 in Riga.
