By Filip Derewenda
While AUKUS is a key security instrument to maintain regional peace and stability, the Three Seas Initiative ensures European stability through trade and investment cooperation. If Global Britain wants to succeed in maintaining a stable rules-based international order, it ought to consider engaging with the Initiative.
The AUKUS security pact will see the United States and the United Kingdom assist Australia with developing and deploying nuclear-powered submarines. The strong criticism from our French allies notwithstanding, AUKUS is the first major post-Brexit foreign policy victory. Global Britain has created a new avenue for transatlantic cooperation and stronger ties with Australia through a collaborative approach to international stability. However, plenty is yet to be done to build a democratic bulwark against authoritarian expansionism.
While security cooperation is a key component in maintaining stability in the rules-based international order, trade and investment cooperation is an equally important tool. Earlier this month, I contributed to a 10-page report on the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) and the Opportunities for Global Britain, which outlined the mechanisms of the 3SI and highlighted the exceptional political and economic transformation of Central and Eastern Europe. Most importantly, the report also discussed the geopolitical competition currently taking place in the region and demonstrated the 3SI’s ability to act as a strategic counterforce to the growing challenges.
The Three Seas Initiative is an economic platform that aims to intensify regional cooperation through infrastructure, energy, and digital interconnectivity projects. The twelve founding members of the initiative are Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Germany, the United States, and the European Commission are the Initiative’s official partners. Since its inception in 2016, the 3SI has hosted over 5 intergovernmental summits and has established a rapidly growing 3SI Investment Fund to attract international private and public sector capital, which includes Washington as one of its contributors.
As unpacked in the aforementioned report, the 3SI’s success is inextricably linked with the region’s ability to counter Moscow’s growing energy dominance and offers Central and Eastern Europe, the fastest growing European economic region, an alternative to Beijing’s ‘17+1’ investment platform. However, despite its quick development since 2016, the 3SI needs significant political and economic support in order to fulfil its full potential. Consequently, in cooperation with the Initiative’s official partners, many other international players such as Japan have expressed their interest in engaging with the Three Seas Initiative and its institutions.
Global Britain, alongside its recent success in security cooperation, should consider following its closest allies in establishing a new avenue for trade and investment cooperation via the 3SI. A UK-backed 3SI would not only open the British public and private sector to over 157 infrastructure, energy, and digital interconnectivity projects, but would most importantly ensure that stability and prosperity are maintained on the Old Continent.
Filip Derewenda
I believe that discussions around British foreign policy in the context of Central and Eastern Europe are quite scarce in mainstream media, thus I believe this article provides the readers with a new perspective of post-Brexit Britain and educated them about the region more generally.
The full report on the Three Seas Initiative and the Opportunities for Global Britain can be found here - https://emerging-europe.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Report-on-the-Three-Seas-Initiative.pdf
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