Polish egoism and I3M. Romania must get out of the Warsaw trap

By Constantin Radut
At the end of November, the conference “Region’s needs and the role of the Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund” was held in Bucharest, in total anonymity. The organizers were the two founding members of the Investment Fund, respectively, Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK) – the development bank of Poland and the Export-Import Bank of Romania, EximBank.
The history of this fund is a hasty and random one, at least for the interests of Romania.
The decision to set up the Fund was taken after the Bucharest summit in 2018, attended by representatives of the 12 member states, former communist states in Eastern Europe: Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, plus Austria. Then, in Bucharest, by virtue of the greatness of the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis and of the Polish cunning, represented by President Andrzej Duda, Romania has accepted and allocated in this investment fund over 250 million euros. It is not known whether it will ever benefit from the support of the Investment Fund in one of the priority areas, namely: transport infrastructure, energy and digital infrastructure.
As I wrote before, the Big Three Initiative is a Polish innovation for renewing Warsaw’s regional power dream. Warsaw Conservative politicians have succeeded in renewing the high-powered spirit that Marshal Piłsudski cultivated before and after the First World War: the creation of a State Union to build a wall against the Soviet Union.
Now, some of the leading politicians in Warsaw still want the creation of an East-European economic union within the European Union. One could rediscover the idea of Marshal Piłsudski for the realization of Intermarium / Międzymorze (in Polish), a composition of states between the Baltic, Adriatic and the Black Sea. Poland would be the main beneficiary and central pivotal of this union.
To a point, things went well. The new Intermarium, now called the Three Seas Initiative (I3M) started with a 2015 agreement between Poland and Croatia. The next year, the first summit in Dubrovnik takes place. In 2017 it takes place in Warsaw. Meanwhile, Romania is also co-opted. As a reward, Bucharest is hosting the third summit in 2018. The other states were already members of I3M.
Since without an economic component Warsaw could not exploit much, it is decided to set up the Investment Fund of I3M. The fund is set up quickly, under Luxembourg law, in 2019, with a capital of 500 million euros, through equal Polish-Romanian contribution.
But, to the surprise of many analysts, no one wanted to make a capital contribution to this Fund.
The question is why? And the answer is simple. Warsaw wants to benefit with priority from the fund’s capital, constrained by the huge investments it has committed to make for the Kaczynski regime to remain in power.
It is illustrative that the Polish press does not talk about collaboration in I3M, but about satisfying Polish interests in the energy, transport and logistics sectors.
Even more significant is the fact that the Polish press did not present any analysis of the conference “Region’s needs and the role of the Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund”, held in Bucharest at the end of November.
Polish egoism has reached disturbing parameters. It is illustrative that the notion that Poland is a “great power” is becoming more and more popular in the local media and in the opinions of the authorities. Let’s not turn the wheel of history!
Romania needs to wake up and get out of the Warsaw trap.