Globalaffairs

Issue 2/ April-May 2007
By Raul Sanchez

The geostrategic policy of the European Union is becoming aware of the important role of the Black Sea, in a context of extension of the organization. Although the UE lacks a policy for this region, the accumulated experiences due to programs developed - such as the Euro-Med, Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, also known as ‘Barcelona Process’ of regional cooperation across the Mediterranean Sea - help to promote new formulas of dialogue in regard to the Black Sea.

The awareness of the Twenty-seven and local actors of its importance has raised the necessity for a dialogue framework. Thus, the Stability Pact of the EU for South Eastern Europe has been signed. Moreover, the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC PERMIS) is born, in which 11 coastal countries of Black Sea and neighboring states participate, as well as the Black Sea Forum for Dialogue and Partnership. This last one is a Romanian initiative to offer a right framework of meetings and dialogue in order to launch a process for thinking about the future and regional identity. In fact, the first meeting of the Forum was hold in June of 2006, in Bucharest.

Romania, after joining in the EU, has been practicing a pro-American policy, being distanced from a communist Left that plunged the country into chaos and misery, therefore there is a high percentage of Eurosceptic and people resistant to reforms in the population

On the other hand, the last EU extension has created a new and likely unstable situation in the organization. For the first time, the organization borders the Black Sea, mainly controlled by Russian and Turkish authorities. This causes that countries seemed distant, such as Kazakhstan, come closer to Brussels and political and economic agreements are taking place.

The Romanian president, Traian Basescu has emphasised that the solution of conflicts in areas such as Transnistria, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Southern Osetia and the design of stability and security in these zones will be a challenge for the EU and NATO. ‘The EU has become, without doubt, a pillar of the evolutions and transformations in the region of the Black Sea and neighboring areas’, Basescu stated last June.

The Union counts on special ‘soft power’ that includes the promise of integration and political dialogue, as well as the attendance to reforms and development. In these circumstances, the policy of Romania agrees with the EU, and Bucharest has to play a catalyst role in that political area, according to the Romanian analyst Oleg Serebrian.

Moreover Serebrian emphasizes ‘I believe that the policy of the Pontus Euxinus - old Roman name of the Black Sea -, for Romania is something extremely important. Although the risk of diminishing that term, I believe that Romania is able to make a concept and a strategy of foreign policy concerning the Black Sea’.

The problem that many analysts raise is based on the creation of a Euro-region of the Black Sea. According to a project advanced by the EU and Romania, it would be likely to intensify the Europeanization of the bordering and Eastern countries as well as the coastal states. Beyond the advantages and disadvantages of regional approaches or challenges of creating a similar region, without doubt there is a series of dilemmas. First, the dilemma about how to create a European security area or a regional cooperation zone. The first one may imply reinforcing the borders; on the contrary, the second one may mean the dissolution of borders. Second, the dilemma of developing seems complicate because to grow economically is arduous with a poor infrastructure.

In this exchange of ideas, Romania is trying to play a mediator role. The Romanian policy in the area of the Black Sea is based on the spirit of the good European practices and focused on five dimensions: democratic development, economic development through cooperation, promotion of the problems of the area as strategic issue for the EU, promotion of the regional cultural area and the ‘soft’ security - militarily weak -.

Furthermore, Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Italy have agreed to construct the trans-European pipe line Contstanta -Trieste that will transport oil from the Caucasus to Central and Western Europe. This Pan-European pipe line, - 1,856 kilometres long- , will be linked to the TAL oil system (Trans Alpine Line) and its cargo capacity will be between 60 to 90 million tons of oil a year. At the same time, a gas pipeline for transporting gas from Kazakhstan to Europe will be constructed with a targeted conveyance capacity of 20 billion cubic meters per year. The project of the Pan-European pipe line is still in an initial phase and the involved countries have only decided to express the political will to attract investors. The pipe line, that is planned to be constructed after 2011, will allow the direct oil transport from the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea Basin to the refineries in Trieste and Geneva in Italy.

Therefore its geographic location returns to be after a century, according to Serebrian, the place where Turkey and Russia politically meet, thus it is an area with a complex identity. In this area, two parts of the world met and interweave: the continental identity, the sea identity, ethnic and religious identity –the European and the Asian ones -, a zone that is running constantly into a destructive storm. Indeed that turbulence is its distinguishing sign as opposed to neighboring areas.

The Second Mediterranean

The European Union and the United States, together with Romania and Ukraine, aim to make a strategic plan in the area of the Black Sea because they consider this region vital for the security and trade relations; besides it connects to the Middle East. The president of the Project on Transitory Democracies, Bruce Pitcairn Jackson during a visit to Romania last year, emphasized the necessity to draw up a strategy for the Black Sea, a region of ‘greater strategic interest’, for both Europe and the United States.

Bruce Jackson, who maintained conversations with the president of Romania, Traian Basescu, assures that the ‘objective consists of creating the second Mediterranean in the Black Sea in regard to security, trade and political cooperation’. According to him, ‘several factors lead to make this plan’.

In the first place, the Black Sea is located in the border between democratic countries in the area and the Middle East - Syria, Iran and Iraq -. Secondly, the trade relations of the region with the EU states are relevant because currently they import 50% of energy and in 2020 it will be 70%. Thirdly, Bruce Jackson realizes that the region of the Black Sea is quickly becoming a part of Europe: ‘Except for Croatia, all the countries candidates for the Europe Union membership come from the region. Romania and Bulgaria expect to join in 2007 and Turkey in 2014’.

He highlights the common democratic values as important factor, because ‘both the Georgia’s ‘Revolution of roses’ and the Ukraine’s orange revolution have been developed in the banks of the Black Sea and they have caused a change in the political structure from Minsk and Chisinau to Alma Ata, Bishkek and Beirut’.

Likewise, Bruce Jackson pointed out the fact that there are still excrements ‘of the fragmentation of the old Soviet Union in the zone’. The ‘frozen conflicts’ begin in Transnistria, Eastern Moldavia, and they continue in Aphasia and Southern Osetia until the mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh in the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In these separatist regions, the transnational criminality has settled down and drugs, arms, children and women trafficking have been developed. According to Bruce Jackson, ‘these criminal organizations destabilize the governments of the region, and threaten Europe due to illegal trafficking and the United States due to their capacity and intention to sell arms and technology to enemies’.

In order to secure the region, the President of the Project on Transitory Democracies proposed a series of actions ‘to support new democracies, to prevent interferences of foreign governments and to settle down the Euro-Atlantic institutions’. The first goal consists of accelerating the process of democratization through the integration of Romania and Bulgaria in the European Union, this goal was fulfilled the 1st of January 2007.

On the other hand, it is called for collaboration between the President of Ukraine and Georgia, Viktor Yushchenko and Mijail Saakashvili, and Traian Basescu for ‘forming a new structure in the strategy of the Black Sea’, despite the initiatives of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and NATO, together with the regional organization GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldavia) or the dying Forum of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation.

Bruce Jackson also indicated that they have to give priority to ‘frozen conflicts’ such as the separatist regime in Transnistria and he stated that the orange revolution of Ukraine can make the end of Mafias in the region possible as well as the end of the secessionist conflict with the constitutional government in Chisinau. Moreover, he stated that the five-country structure - Russia, Ukraine, OSCE, Moldavia and Transnistria – should be extended so as to include the European Union and Romania as ‘constructive and essential partners’. At the same time, he suggested the harmonization of the programs to support the development of democracy of the United States and the European Union and he regretted that there is not any coordination between both entities in the area.

On the other hand, Traian Basescu states: ‘Romania has a strategic partner – the United States - and this relation is crucial for the security of the region and for fostering democracy in neighboring countries’. Furthermore, he clarifies that Romania is a bridge for the transatlantic community in the area of the Black Sea and ‘for promoting the values of freedom and democracy in the region’.

Raul Sanchez
Periodista y MA en Estudios Europeos por la Universidad de Iasi (Rumania)

Global Affairs is not liable for author’s opinion

 Print Europe | Permalink | eva