U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright led a high-level delegation to Dubrovnik this week, joining leaders from 13 Central and Eastern European nations for the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) Summit.
Accompanied by Under Secretary of State Allison Hooker and Ambassador Nicole McGraw, the U.S. team spent April 28-29 cementing a series of infrastructure and energy pacts designed to reshape the flow of power across the region.
The summit focused on the strategic corridor between the Baltic, Black, and Adriatic Seas. As a primary partner to the initiative, the United States moved to secure several major bilateral agreements aimed at cutting regional reliance on “adversarial energy sources” while opening doors for American industry under the current administration’s America First policy.
A centerpiece of the summit was the Bilateral Memorandum of Understanding on the Trump Peace Pipelines Framework.
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This agreement focuses on building strategic pipeline infrastructure to bolster energy connectivity across the continent. In tandem with this, the U.S. and Croatia issued a Joint Statement on Enhanced Civil Nuclear Cooperation, a move intended to scale up Croatia’s domestic nuclear capabilities.
Beyond general cooperation, the delegation announced specific technical projects. This includes a feasibility study for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in Croatia under the FIRST program, which aims to deploy advanced U.S. nuclear tech.
Further north, a Statement of Intent was signed between the U.S., Slovakia, and Westinghouse Electric Company to launch a Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) study for a nuclear power plant in Slovakia.
Regional infrastructure also saw a boost with a Joint Statement of Intent supporting a gas pipeline between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Known as the Southern Interconnection, the project is expected to create new markets for U.S. energy exports.
On the financial front, officials moved to modernize investment rules by signing a protocol to amend the U.S.-Croatia Bilateral Income Tax Treaty. The update brings the 2022 agreement into line with current U.S. law, targeting double taxation relief to provide more certainty for cross-border investors, pending Senate ratification.
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