Greece aims to bolster its geopolitical influence in the Balkans through energy, and power utility PPC’s takeover of Italian group ENEL’s Romanian subsidiary ENEL Romania being a key part of this strategy, writes www.energypress.eu. The online publication informs that PPC’s chief executive officer Georgios Stassis will take part at the upcoming Summit of The Three Seas, in Bucharest.

Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said last week that at the summit of the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) scheduled for September 6 in Bucharest, thought will be given to expanding the platform to include Greece as a participating state as well as Ukraine and Moldova as associated states. “The expansion of the initiative with a new participating state, Greece, and granting the status of associated states to Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova is shaping up,” Iohannis told a meeting with Romanian heads of diplomatic missions and consular offices and directors of Romanian cultural institutes, according to Agerpres.

The Three Seas is a diplomatic initiative meant to bring together EU member states and candidates located between the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas for collaboration in the fields of energy, infrastructure and the digital economy. Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine are the members of The Three Seas initiative.

Romania has become a geopolitical focal point as a result of the country’s close proximity to war-entangled Ukraine, comments www.energypress.eu. The publication also mentions that, in addition to PPC’s takeover of ENEL Romania, Helleniq Energy recently invested in Romania and had been preceded by Mytilineos – both in renewable energy projects.