Greece is the second (after Austria) country of the ‘old West’ to participate in the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) cooperation formula and the first that has to joint it without being a founding member. The motives for Greece’s decision are clearly defined by the Greek political elites and experts: military security—(the logistical importance of Greek ports in the Aegean for military mobility on NATO’s southern flank), economic (gaining a base for these ports in the interior of the Balkan Peninsula by expanding railway connections from them to the north in the EU—Bulgaria, Romania), geopolitical game (attracting US political interest and investment in the face of bad US-Turkey relations—routes through Greece as a replacement for the Turkish-controlled Black Sea straits), stabilization of the neighborhood (stopping revisionist Russia—sources of Pan-Slavism that may complicate relations with North Macedonia), internal security (reduction of the scale of road accidents by shifting part of transport traffic to railway system). The reasons why Greece joined the Three Seas Initiative are well defined in Athens and internalized as a political plan of the state. This is related to the sense of one’s own power and ability to shape the political and infrastructural reality in Greece and its northern neighborhood. In none of the Three Seas Initiative countries studied so far has the awareness of the goals and action among the country’s political elites been as clearly defined as in Greece.
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