The preparatory meeting of the Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea initiative was held at the proposal of the Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic on the fringes of the autumn session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
At the meeting, Grabar-Kitarovic presented the concept of the informal initiative which is aimed at strengthening central European cooperation on the political, economic, infrastructural and security fronts.
The first meeting of the initiative will be held in spring 2016 in Croatia and it will bring together all those interested in possible joint projects -- statesmen, experts and representatives of the business community, the Office of the Croatian President said in the press release.
The initiative is not aimed at duplicating the existing organisations and mechanisms of cooperation and its activities will be focused on securing the necessary political support and concrete projects in the interest of the countries involved, as well as the entire European Union and a wider trans-Atlantic community, the President's Office said.
Grabar-Kitarovic in New York on Tuesday expressed her satisfaction with a meeting of the new Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea Initiative which is expected to "help define and increase the competitiveness of our economies."
"I am very satisfied because all of us support this initiative. It is not our intention to make a formal organisation or an institution but a forum as part of which we will meet and talk about issues of common interest, from political and security issues to concrete projects in the field of energy, energy networking, digital networking, which will most definitely help define and increase the competitiveness of our economies," Grabar-Kitarovic said in New York where she is attending a session of the United Nations General Assembly.
According to her, Croatia will work on defining projects and gathering countries. The Croatian President expresses confidence that members of the new initiative would soon approach the European Union with concrete projects for the coming financial period.
It is almost about "establishing a new region within the EU which must define itself as a strong area which will reflect all of the values we represent and in which we will help one another realise our interests within the framework of European policies," Grabar-Kitarovic said.
The meeting in New York was attended by representatives of all 11 EU countries that were invited -- Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia and the Czech Republic. The initiative also received support of the United States, whose special Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs leading the Bureau of Energy Resources (ENR) at the U.S. Department of State Amos Hochstein attended the meeting as an observer.