The investment needs for the modernization of the transport, energy and digital infrastructure in the 12 countries of the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) amount to almost 600 billion euros, while the EU budget for this type of investments in the region is 42 billion euros for the period 2021 - 2027, said Pawel Nierada, member of the Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund Oversight Council on behalf of the Polish bank BGK, citing a survey by consulting company SpotData.
The chair of the Fund's Oversight Council, Beata Daszynska-Muzyczka, who is also CEO of the Polish bank BGK, told AGERPRES on Thursday that in order to have their financing needs met, the member states of the Three Seas Initiative should speak in one voice before the European financial institutions.
Daszynska-Muzyczka also said that the EU will fail if it does not modernize the energy and transport infrastructure of the 3SI states and that the latter should approach the European Investment Bank (EIB) through the Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund. In this regard, she said that each of the 12 3SI member countries should invite the EIB to take part in the initiatives of the Investment Fund.
The Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund will finance energy, transport or digitization projects in the 12 member states that will connect at least two countries, said the chair of the Fund's Oversight Council.
This region presents extraordinary infrastructure creation opportunities, compared to the infrastructure that already exists in Western Europe. I think the fund will grow by another 1 billion euros next year, said Beata Daszynska-Muzyczka.
Pawel Nierada explained that the purpose is for the funded projects to have an impact on several countries in the area.
The most important reason why we want the Fund's activity to succeed is because we want to subsequently attract even more capital. We do not want to compete with the European funds for infrastructure, nor with the national ones, our aim is to bring even more money to the region, Nierada said.
The Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund is a fund initiated in May 2019 by the governments of Poland and Romania, through the Polish bank BGK and Romania's EximBank, with the two having contributed a combined 500-plus million euros. The Fund is set to finance infrastructure, energy and digitization projects in the 3SI space - Romania, Poland, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The Chair of the Fund's Oversight Council explained that the Fund will work according to the market rules.
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