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Why the Black Sea matters for the European Union? – Brief remarks and possible developments

IED Working Paper by Mihai Sebe

03.07.2018

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In the early phase of the EU enlargement in Central and Eastern Europe, the EU never had a policy towards the Black Sea region as such. It was a situation that partially corrected through the Black Sea Synergy (2007) but was later one shadowed by the Eastern Partnership Initiative. The failure of the EU policies and also a perceive lack of interest on behalf of NATO led to a series of regional crises and conflicts that have transformed the area into a sensitive region on the top of the agenda, as the region is of increasing importance.

Currently the region is in the middle of an increasing security crisis (due to the Russian actions, the refugee crisis, the Turkish crisis, etc.) which affects all decision-making processes in the region.

The following paper would try to provide to both a general and specialised audience an update as well as a series of analyses on why the Black Sea matters.

It is in this context that views remain divergent on how the Western world should move forward, either through a strategic region-wide approach or more targeted sectoral policies (neither of which are mutually exclusive).



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