The Three Seas Initiative has evolved into a geopolitical and geo-economic grouping of primarily post-communist EU member states. Despite their diversity and differences in policies towards Russia, the members are showing certain common interests.

The Three Seas Initiative was originally developed as a geopolitical alliance of NATO/EU member states of “New Europe”: from Estonia to Croatia, connecting the Baltic and Adriatic Seas. The initiative was officially launched in 2015 as the Adriatic-Baltic Sea Initiative by Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović and has been referred to as the ABC (Adriatic, Baltic, and Black Sea) Initiative, first designated by Polish President Andrzej Duda. It has also been referred to as “the vertical”, considering the north-to-south direction of the bloc of countries which make up the initiative.

In the post-Versailles era, Polish leader Józef Piłsudski proposed to the authorities of Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus to forge an Intermarium union for the survival of their states. Piłsudski risked and pushed forward an intellectual speculation on how to strengthen subjectivity and sovereignty of the “young” states in games between major powers. From the perspective of time, this speculation can hardly be defined as a real-life success.

With US President Donald Trump’s visit in Poland, the brand of the Three Seas Initiative gained international reputation. In Poland where the roots of the initiative began, the Three Seas or – as one can Latinise it, Trimarium – initiative is often confused with the historical project of Intermarium, intuitively understood by many. Not only journalists but also politicians and even public officials contribute to the confusion. Well, they are wrong.