New developments and new formats of cooperation become more and more relevant in the future, such as the relationship between the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance, the B9 format within NATO or the Three Seas Initiative (3SI). The EU-NATO declaration from Warsaw and the implementation of the decisions stipulated in it are of extreme importance for the regional security landscape. The decisions taken at the Bruxelles NATO Summit from May 2017, the EU summit from June, the presence of the US president Donald Trump in Warsaw at the Summit of the Three Seas Initiative represent a marking point for the future relations between the main actors in the region. Given the present security environment, this conference will analyze NATO’s actions and regional formats of cooperation such as B9 and 3SI, being the first one to assess the security implications of the 3SI.
Until recently, our assessment departed from the perspective that the Western elites are facing stringent challenges and in this context the idea that these problems may be related to the 2004-2007 enlargement process arose. The solution of multiple-speed Europe seemed to place our region in a peripheral area. The security/military situation in the region from a NATO point of view seemed inertial, based on the decisions of the former USA administration on forward defence. Nowadays, the NATO actions in the region, the deployment of troops, the 2017 year of execution, the B9 Format, the US support for the Three Seas Initiative and the regional cooperation seem to set new rules and a new security architecture in the region.